I hope MS doesn't buy Epic. $1 billion wasted. Epic is crap IMO (well not crap per se, because they make game engines, but since Gears is a MS game already, Epic wouldn't strengthen the X360 with exclusives).

@ nephel

"The major shareholders in Yahoo are officers and directors of the company. I'm pretty sure they were involved in rejecting the offer in the first place"

ROFLOL...do you have any f$$king idea WTF you're talking about? This is why it's impposssible to debate an....oh nevermind...just acutally do some darn research before looking like a fool:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aZNW6cxCk4sk&refer=news

An I quote from an ACTUAL article at a financial website, and not from FAN BOY speculation:

"Yahoo's board has 10 members. Directors led by Chairman Roy Bostock and billionaire Ron Burkle are pushing for a greater say in the company's future, the New York Post said Feb. 15, citing an unidentified person close to the situation. They are concerned that Yang, who co-founded Yahoo more than a decade ago, may reject an offer for emotional reasons instead of financial ones, the Post said."

These guys aren't in the business to lose money, and NO...a majority of shareholders are NOT on the BOD for Yahoo...they are fund managers that own millions and millions of shares.

and another, but thereis acutally more online for you to READ, so that you can perhaps provide some comments based on SOMETHING other than your "expert" opinon.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/yahoo-board-divided-microsoft-bid/story.aspx?guid=%7B12CE52A9%2DC8CB%2D48E1%2D9DE4%2DF97C6FAF5716%7D&dist=FSQ

This isn't going to happen, epic isn't a huge team and the only really big IP they own is gears, which MS has partial control over right now. 1 billion is just a tad too steep. 

I said cash flow, notice that I also mentioned the debt in my post. The point is that they will contract debt, but should make enough profit to pay back the debt in a few quarters. One more billion would not be a problem.

Epic is a good choice because of the direct access to the Unreal Engine but in terms of games, if Microsoft was going to by anyone, the should buy Take2. I'm not saying it's a good thing to have major developers go exclusive (personally, I like multi-platform games), but it's a good idea for them if they want to counter Sony's large 1st party developer stable.

I do expect that Microsoft is going to buy someone fairly major this year. The recent profit turned by the gaming division should have been enough for them to justify heavier investment.

 Wow. You're just a complete douchebag, aren't you.  Exactly what are you accusing me of being a fan boy of? Or is calling someone a fanboy your default response?

 I'll see your quote and raise you one from your own second link :

"Yahoo announced earlier this week that its board had unanimously concluded Microsoft's offer, initially put at $44.6 billion, undervalues the Internet giant."

 Those members on the board you refer to in your quote voted against the offer.

Also, i never said the majority of shareholders are on the board. I said the major shareholders. I thought you were referring to major direct shareholders and not institutional shareholders in your comment.  That was my misunderstanding of what you were referring to.

You are correct that the majority of the company (around 70%, i think) is held by institutional and fund holders. Presumably these are equity shares and presumably the managers retain voting rights (neither of which has to be true. I dont hold shares in Yahoo and don't know if all of those shares are equity shares or who holds the voting rights for those shares if they are). 

However, your own links list several of those major institutional holders as saying microsoft has to up the price before they'll back their bid.

In any case, Their offer was unanimously rejected. The overture is hostile.

Here's a link to the definition of hostile takeover : http://www.investorwords.com/2344/hostile_takeover.html

Also, none of this really has anything to do with Epic.