Over the weekend Electronic Arts announced they are indeed trying to acquire Take-Two, and with it the 2K Sports line of games.

Right now EA Sports is tight lipped about any plans for the 2K Sports brand when/if Take-Two’s shareholders agree to be acquired (and you have to think it’s only a matter of time and money). But right now, what happens after the possible acquisition is purely speculation.

The fear of course is that EA takes the shiny Major League Baseball exclusive license and mothballs everything else associated with 2K Sports. That wouldn’t be too friendly, and I know a few people whose heads would literally explode.

Sadly that’s the most likely scenario, as this move seems to really be more about Grand Theft Auto, BioShock and the non-sports titles Take-Two has in its portfolio. EA no doubt figures it can buy those great franchises and at the same time kill its chief competitor in a number of different sports.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you such a move would be very bad for sports gamers. Aside from no longer having a choice what hockey, basketball or football title you want to buy, EA has time and again proved they’ll produce less than stellar games if they aren’t pushed by another company.

Take NHL 08 and NBA Live 08 this year. In both cases the games’ developers went to great lengths to drastically improve gameplay and in many ways go back to the drawing board and start over. For NHL 08 the result was one of the best hockey games in recent memory. For NBA Live 08 it meant a dramatically improved title, which still has work to be done but is showing promise.

In each case do you think such efforts would have been undertaken with no NHL 2K and NBA 2K to push it? Personally I doubt it.

(By the way one potentially good outcome from the above scenario is another publisher jumping into the market hoping to grab the anti-EA crowd. I am sure Activision/Blizzard and others such as Sony and Microsoft are watching very carefully).

EA does have an alternative. One very long shot is to continue producing a 2K Sports line of games. Those games tend to be more simulation than arcade game (the opposite is true for EA Sports titles), so you have a natural divide there. Again though, such a move seems unlikely.

The best alternative for all parties – EA Sports, Take Two and consumers – would be to have EA work on titles that combine the strengths of 2K Sports and EA Sports.

At one time or another we have all played the “what if” game when it comes to sports titles. “What if we took A from this game and B from that game? It would be great!”

Well if this move goes through, EA would be in a position to do this, potentially creating uber-sports titles that rock our faces off with how awesome they are.

Take Madden and All-Pro Football/NFL 2K. In theory EA could take the gameplay and strategy of the 2K games (both of which are frankly light years ahead of Madden) and combine the polish and graphics of Madden. Oh yeah – and the exclusive NFL license. As a fan of Madden up until this past fall, I can tell you such a game would be a huge hit.

You could continue a similar process with each of the other games EA and Take-Two used to compete in. Just take a laundry list of all the features and options and select which title did things the best. The bar for such games couldn’t be high enough.

Regardless of what decisions are made, one certainty is the landscape of sports gaming is going to change drastically over the next few years. For EA Sports this is really a make or break situation. If they make the right decisions there’s no limit to how popular their games can become; but, if they make a wrong step they risk alienating a huge portion of their customers.