Speculation continues to mount over the future of French publisher Ubisoft, after market leader Electronic Arts this week declined to rule out the possibility of taking a controlling stake in the firm following its 20 per cent share purchase in December. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that executives from the two companies are engaged in preliminary talks, which was confirmed by EA"s VP of corporate communications Jeff Brown.
Brown downplayed the importance of the talks - telling US website GameSpot that "it would be unwise to characterise any of the discussions as a negotiation" and essentially claiming that they didn"t go beyond the normal conversations that would be expected between a company"s management and its largest shareholder.