Well based on what Phil said when Bungie left Activision, apparently MS didn't try to convince them to sell to or join MS. It's hard to believe that if Bungie wanted to partner with MS again that they wouldn't be interested. If Take Two has enough leverage over what happens to the company, whether it get's bought out and who it sells to, you have to wonder if they would prefer it to be a certain company, or if they flat out would refuse to join certain companies. If MS has cash to burn, then why haven't they continued to steadily buy more studios, or have they been and nobody knows yet until they announce it. On a big stage again?

Could be a lot of reasons. Just because you have more money than someone, doesn't mean you always get what you want. Most of the time maybe, but not always.

Just as easy without a rumor,  someone on the inside spilling the beans.  When money is involved people are willing to give up such info at a drop of a dime.  Not everything is made public.

Why would you bring up a MS that no longer exist.  In other words since Bungie departure there has been quite a turnaround in top management as well as top management in the games division.  Either way, we have no real clue what this MS would do if the offer is on the table.  We can really guess all we want but if we are talking about money and who has it with plenty of cash on hand, then MS far exceed anything Sony could offer.

First off, the rumor is that Sony made an offer not T2 stating they were up for sale.  The likely hood of MS doing whatever they see fit to stay competitive in the business we have no clue of but you can believe they have so much cash reserves that 20BN they could easily afford without blinking an eye.  For a company like MS have huge cash on hand not making you money really isn't all that great.  So if MS is willing to purchase the companies they have and could also get R* and the other gems within T2, why would they not do it.  Your reason is that they already spent to much money which really doesn't hold water.

So you are talking about permanent corporate espionage. That is a crime.

Otherwise a secret deal being talked about by a very small team wouldn't automatically go to MS ears you understand that right?

Not sure why this has to be brought up so often, but MS =/= Xbox. Xbox does not have access to the money MS does. MS allocates them a budget and that's what they get. They may be able to convince a higher up to give them more, but they aren't convincing them to give them $14B+ to buy a publisher and its IPs for a game release every 3-4 years in each, minus a couple yearly sports titles. Xbox just isn't that high of a priority for MS, and definitely not for its investors.

PlayStation, on the other hand, is one of Sony's main focuses. If they felt it would bolster them for next gen, and weaken their competition enough, they definitely would do this. However, they may not think its worth it ,either, if T2's games are just going to sell 60-70% on there systems anyway.

Not sure if people are aware but Sony already debunked this as not happening.

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/03/16/sony-take-two-acquisition-report-denied/

It was already posted couple times. This type of debunking doesn't prove anything anyway, as generally all rumors are denied until they become true (not that this rumor was ever real at any time).

Yeah, this was confirmed last week—the day after the initial rumor started. I was confused why everyone was still talking about the rumor in light of the confirmation. 

Yeah, I was just posting to make sure because people were still talking about it. xD