http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/26/rumor-ea-eyeing-ubisoft-takeover-next/

according to Joystiq

Take this one with some mountainous mounds of salt, but a suspicious web site registration has some buzzing that EA might be considering a Take Two-style takeover bid for Ubisoft as its next potential expansion move. A poster over at Gamecyte noticed that a proxy registration for eaubisoft.com was set up by the same company on the same day as the registration for eatake2.com, the lobbying site created to convince Take Two shareholders to accept the company's unsolicited takeover bid (it did not succeed).

Of course, with proxy registration, it's impossible to know whether it was EA that actually registered the second site or if it's just the act of an overzealous domain camper. Still, given the close proximity of the registrations and the fact that EA already owns close to 25 percent of the voting shares in Ubisoft , the circumstantial evidence that EA was at least considering a move is significant (it wouldn't be the first such takeover attempt, either).

Ubisoft for its part, is focusing on license acquisition to spur its own growth in light of the Take Two offer. You know what they say ... when a bear like EA is chasing you, you don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the guy you're running with.

Ubisoft is the 3rd biggest developer in the world, it can't be cheap.

EA isn't MS, can it really afford to just hand out gobs on money like this?

well, the article said that EA already owns 25% of the voting share in Ubisoft, so they only need to get another 26% to official take over Ubisoft.

Wouldn't surprise me, Ubisoft is a foolish and clumsy developer. The only thing worth while they've made recently that doesn't have Tom Clancy in the title is Assassin's Creed and even then speculation runs rampant that it was barely enough to boost their economic situation.

Ubisoft has made the significant mistake of not taking the Wii seriously. Red Steel and Raving Rabbids were novel attempts, but both were not enough to off set their losses with other games on the Wii and other consoles given the exploding development costs for the HD consoles. With games like Nitro Bike and Prince of Persia: Dual Swords, its clear they don't have the resources or organization to handle a large number of projects professionally while simultaneously investing in major ones such as Assassin's Creed and the Tom Clancy games.

Ubisoft has shown a repeated inability to manage production costs of their games which has led to their recent financial peril.

Honestly, I think this is what Ubisoft deserves, in all likelihood this is the only way they'll ever reach the standard of other developers who are able to produce a number of viable AAA titles a year without the rest of their projects turning into shovelware. As an added bonus one can hope that talent will jump ship with the buy and seek employment in other companies, though its doubtful just how much talent Ubisoft has given how bitterly mediocre Assassin's Creed was despite its mass appeal, and if this is really the best they can do, then I'll glably bid them adeu.

It seems EA won't rest until every Western developer is in their clutches.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=18731#end

>Ubisoft has made the significant mistake of not taking the Wii seriously. Red Steel and Raving Rabbids were novel attempts,


with 2 million dollars sellers under its bell, Personally I think Ubisoft has done MUCH better than any other third-party developers for Wii.

Not taking the Wii seriously doesn't make them stupid.  Anyway, they made games for the Wii, so that is a crap excuse.  If they choose not to accept the Wii, they will have to deal with the consequences, but I laud them in their non Wii pursuits. 

Both were Launch Titles and neither that exceptional. Needless to say developers like Sega and Capcom have done much more for the Wii despite their smaller size.

I never said they didn't make games for the Wii, but they didn't make serious games for the Wii. Red Steel was a clumsy game that only sold well because it was a launch title. Raving Rabbids is your typical party game and nothing unique. Everything else they've put on the Wii has either been poorly managed or just been plain shovelware.

Unfortunatley its their non-Wii pursuits which have left them this uterly vulnerable. Read my post next time instead of just skimming it for what you feel to be the general gist of the what is being said.

I think Ubisoft has actually taken the Wii quite seriously. Maybe they've done a poor job of developing high quality games, but either way, they are capitalizing on it. Don't forget, they were one of the few 3rd parties to completely back the Wii, gung-ho, from the start.

Either way, if they've capatalized off the Wii (they have), I don't see how its relevant how "seriously" they took it. 

Being vulnerable or not, this makes me hate EA more and more every day. Independance is > deep pockets, Imo.

EA=Satan

If they took the Wii seriously they would have ported Assassin's Creed to it. And considering the game is slated for both DS and Cell Phone, I don't want to hear a goddam single notion about graphics being a problem.