OS Roundtable: The Activision/Take Two Saga -- Where do you see it going?'

Caley Roark: Like the Comcast-NBC transaction, Activision buying Take-Two would mark the continuing decline of corporate diversity in the technology landscape. While this is normally bad for consumers, there may be a positive when it comes to sports gaming.

First, the financial and marketing power of Activision-Blizzard would provide huge benefits to 2K's line of sports games. The money would exist for riskier developments, like the continuation of the Bigs franchise or an HD version of Power Pros. We might see a return of College Hoops, or even another non-NFL football game (an OSer's dream come true).

Secondly, this backing would mean 2K represents more competition for Activition's rival EA. This may translate to quality games, but it may simply mean that exclusive licenses become more sought after, and therefore longer lasting. Perhaps the MLB rights remain at 2K afterall. Of course, these both rely on Activision having an interest in supporting 2K Sports. I suppose there is the possibility that Activision dismantles the 2K sports lineup, or even rolls it into a new Activision Sports brand. From what I understand, 2K Sports is not the big fish at Take-Two. Plus, maybe annual titles are not worth the risk to a new owner.

That said, the Call of Duty franchise release schedule is not that dissimilar from an annual sports title, beyond the fact that the series has two developers working simultaneously. Regardless, I would say that franchise has had a little bit of success.

Jayson Young: 2K Sports is no Blizzard. I expect Activision to treat 2K Sports the same way the company has treated other mid-tier acquisitions such as Red Octane, Bizarre Creations, Neversoft, Infinity Ward and so on. Two of those companies are now defunct (Red Octane and Bizarre Creations), another is on life support after being gutted (Neversoft), and the other team (Infinity Ward) had its senior members resign from Activision over alleged mistreatment.

Activision wants Take-Two primarily for its Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and Borderlands franchises. 2K Sports is merely an afterthought in this acquisition, and with NBA 2K being their only remaining asset, 2K Sports will likely become an eventual, if not immediate, causality of the merger.

Christian McLeod: My honest answer is that if Activision purchases Take-Two the final result is going nowhere of any relevance for sports gamers. The potential acquisition of Take-Two by Activision is about Grand Theft Auto (and other Rockstar franchises) and BioShock, period.

Outside of these two franchises, I don't see the company dumping any additional resources into the 2K Sports label. If Activision was truly interested in succeeding in the sports gaming genre, don't you think the company would have done it already? Activision seems like a company with the monetary and developmental resources necessary to compete against EA when it comes to sports gaming, so why hasn't Activision stepped up to the plate? Blunt answer, the company does not care about that piece of the market.

2K Sports is just an extra "throw in" to this deal should it even happen.

Could Activision buying Take Two lead to an eventual resurgence of the NFL 2K series?

Chase Becotte: I don't really see Activision buying Take-Two. Activision seems to be shying away from big-money transactions that revolve around companies mostly invested in boxed goods at this point. Also, the company seems to be heavily focused on increasing its online revenues. Lastly, the company just slashed a couple of franchises while holding steady as the biggest third-party publisher. Take-Two, on the other hand, is just now recovering and returning to profitability, and some of its biggest titles are still on the horizon.

Simply put, everyone is a small fish to Activision, but a company like Ubisoft or Take-Two just does not seem like a logical choice for Activision. If Activision is going to purchase a company that is redundant in terms of packaged goods, then it might as well at least go for a bigger fish like Electronic Arts.

Regardless, if the future as I see it is more about miniaturized retail releases and downloadable titles that have plenty of DLC potential -- the massive hits of the world like Call of Duty will still get the treatment they receive now, just with even more DLC and branching out to other platforms like Facebook -- then the sports division of 2K could actually fit into wherever it goes. Sports licensing costs would inevitably have to shrink at some point, but the sports genre might be the closest thing to RPG-style massively-multiplayer-online games from an economics standpoint.

In other words, sports games might be able to increase their after-market value with some of the simplest and cheapest to produce DLC. You don't need a $15 map pack that takes a ton of time to develop, or a whole new DLC expansion pack like Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare single-player add-on. All you need is a MMO-style reason to come back and play the game while spending a bit of money on it. Free-to-play MMOs are a big, growing and rather lucrative avenue for companies right now. Sports games can fit into that mold.

Dustin Toms: The Activision takeover has nothing to do with the 2K Sports brand. The company wants to control the Grand Theft Autos and the Red Dead Redemptions, not the 2K Sports titles.

However, if this does happen, I can certainly see the exclusive license for MLB expiring without a plan to renew. In turn, that could really affect the baseball franchise. EA would be able to jump back into the baseball game market and pump out the long-awaited MVP series once again.

Also, like Chase was saying, the DLC possibilities could go through the roof. Of course nobody wants to pay extra for a sports game, but I know I would drop 800 Microsoft Points just for the opportunity to use anything and everything Seattle SuperSonics. The only downfall I see here is if Activision starts keeping out important parts of the sports games we love, and then charging us more later.

In the end, I don't see this takeover changing much for sports gamers. Activision will just enjoy the benefits of the money in our wallets.