Bejesus, talk about ending the day on a bombshell. Daniel Ahmad, analyst at Niko Partners, has just tweeted that Sony are in “advanced board level discussions to acquire Take-Two Interactive”. His report comes from MarketWatch, published by Dow Jones, which tracks trading for investors.

Take-Two Interactive Software TTWO, +5.16% stock climbed 4.7% on rumors that Sony Corp. SNE, +0.90% “is in advanced board level discussions to acquire Take-Two Interactive in a mostly cash deal,” that would value the company at $130 share, according to Joel Kulina, head of technology and media trading at Wedbush Securities.

Take-Two Interactive is the home of Rockstar and Grand Theft Auto, along with other huge franchises such as Bioshock, WWE 2K, Borderlands, XCOM, Red Dead, and Civilization.

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Just imagine if Grand Theft Auto VI was a PlayStation 5 exclusive… or Agent was brought back from the dead.

We should point out that this is just a rumour, although if MarketWatch are publishing it then it’s quite likely there’s some truth in it.

Update: GamesIndustry.biz reached out to all those involved, most importantly Wedbush Securities’ Joel Kulina, who MarketWatch cited as the source of the report. Kulina said, “This is purely unconfirmed market speculation that is making the rounds. I am not the source of this story in any regard. And not sure who quoted me as I didn’t speak with anyone over the phone (unless someone saw a trading note that I wrote).”

It was his trading note that MarketWatch writers Sue Chang and Chris Matthews referenced, with Matthews saying, “The stock shot up at the start of trade today to lead the S&P 500 and I was simply looking for plausible explanations. Joel’s in a good position to know what’s moving individual tech stocks, even if they are just rumors. In terms of timing, [Take-Two] stock was well up before his email went out, so it was not his dissemination of the rumor that sparked the move.”

As unlikely as this story sounded to start with, we can file this much more confidently under in the rumour and speculation bin.

Source: MarketWatch via Twitter