“In the past, in the eighties and nineties, that was a major issue,” he explains. “I remember the big ‘Mario vs. Sonic’ debates. What we see today is that the influence of exclusive titles on the sales curves becomes ever smaller.”

“Given the production costs of the games, it is hardly possible for developers to commit itself exclusively to someone,” continues Schneider-Johne.  He illustrates how the console developers have a business incentive to limit themselves, but that third-party developers “like Electronic Arts or Activision can have a business model of rarely developing for a console exclusively. Therefore, the exclusive title is a little less important.”

And indeed, this is becoming more and more apparent as big-name titles abandon exclusivity.  Until Grand Theft Auto IV, the GTA series came out on PlayStation consoles first, and was only later ported to the Xbox and Windows PC platforms.  Final Fantasy XIII was set to be a PlayStation 3 exclusive, but Square Enix has since decided to “port” the game to the Xbox 360, even delaying the release to do so (although its sister title, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, is still slated as a PS3-exclusive).

We are porting Myst to the iPhone. Ok, before some of you start groaning, this is an outside funded project that is keeping a few developers employed… but it is really more than that. It is an interesting and fun project. This is also a very small team with three of us.

The touch-screen will probably work well for this type of point-click puzzle game.  As an iPhone owner I welcome it.  It might be a welcome distraction for me during between University classes this year.  It’s also a nice change of pace for iPhone games, adding more variety into the mix.

The offer, which had expired last Friday, values the video game publisher at over $2 billion.  EA has been pushing to take over the firm for months, and Take-Two previously insisted that the company wait until GTA IV hit the streets.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick can only shake his head at the deal.  He says that when the board originally received the offer back in March, they “unanimously determined to be inadequate and contrary to the best interests of Take-Two’s stockholders.”

The company isn’t closed-minded on selling, says Zelnick. “The Board is committed to maximizing stockholder value and is exploring all strategic alternatives to do so. We said we were willing to begin formal discussions with interested parties on April 30th, following the launch of Grand Theft Auto IV, and we have in fact begun that process.”

The huge success of Grand Theft Auto IV, and a new Bioshock movie deal with Universal are raising the profile, and price, of Take-Two.  If EA hopes to acquire the company, they may have to raise their bid or make some adjustments to their strategy.

“We’ll include a lot of other instruments, vocals. It will help us expand internationally. It’s the first game we’ve had in which we can use local content and local bands.”

Activision hasn’t confirmed when they’ll be making this introduction, but a new Guitar Hero is scheduled for release at the end of 2008.

The Canadian branch is working on Deus Ex 3, but has announced its working on a second “AAA” project — a term its using to describe its high-priority titles.

Eidos didn’t go as far as to name the game, but they did provide a hint: “The title begins with the letter ‘T’”, reads the notice.

We’re going to take a wild guess and say its probably a Tomb Raider game.

Electronic Arts has been attempting to acquire Take-Two for some time, but the firm is determined to hold out until they release Grand Theft Auto IV in a month. Take-Two says they will revalue their stock options after the game is released.

The company says it will discuss “strategic alternatives” and “business combination” options with interested parties.

“While we are the third-party quality leader, we are not satisfied with where we are”

The company hopes to perform better in 2008. EA did just acquire BioWare, which published Mass Effect last year. Mass Effect went on to become one of the year’s bestsellers and most praised games by fans and critics alike. BioWare is said to be working on a variety of games, including Dragon Age for the PC, an untitled RPG, an MMO and two Mass Effect sequels. One of the games is also said to be a project with LucasArts with which BioWare has a strong history. But BioWare isn’t EA’s only focus for 2008:

“People are very keen on a title we’re developing through our DiCE group in Sweden called Mirror’s Edge. Anything with Sims written on it feels always feels good, and we’re coming up with a very innovative new title called Sim Animals–that’s very strong.”

Other titles like Rock Band and Battlefield: Bad Company are expected to add to the expectations of the company’s 2008 performance.