Late last year, Take-Two made a bid to buy DIRT developer, Codemasters. The initial acquisition would see games like DIRT, Project Cars, among others, flying the Take-Two (2K) flag. Shortly after, EA made its own offer for the company, outbidding Take-Two by .2 billion dollars. For a while, negotiations were at play. However, following recent news, it appears the lane is completely open for an EA acquisition.
Take-Two withdraws bid for Codemasters
With both current offers on the table, Codemasters was already favoring the EA deal. According to their agreement, Take-Two possessed the right to pull the offer if Codemasters failed to hold a shareholders meeting on December 21, or twenty-two days after. Twenty-two days after being January 12.
Seemingly given EA’s strong bid, Codemasters shareholder meetings were not held on or before January 12. Additionally, Take-Two has yet to extend this date. With consent of the Panel, Take-Two has effectively lapsed its offer.
Moving forward or complete halt?
With the Take-Two offer off the table, the lane is completely open for EA to finalize its acquisition. EA expects the to go through during the first quarter of 2021. The impressive library of Codemasters titles will now fly under the EA banner. However, there may be obstacles ahead. EA often pushes games onto the Frostbite engine. In the past, this has resulted lower quality games during the initial adoption. Now that teams have had more experience with the engine, it may be easier to ramp up the Codemasters team, but that remains to be seen.
Codemasters will undoubtedly assist in bolstering the EA racing games portfolio. The company may even assist in rebuilding the past glory of Need For Speed. In recent times, EA has a spotty track record at best when it comes to long term consistent quality. This could be the change needed for its racing IPs but we will have to see.
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