"We've said that we need a history of profitability, good management, the proprietary technology for a franchise, history of multimillion unit sellers," said Kotick yesterday at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium. "Take-Two didnÂ’t fulfill those requirements. Maybe it does over the long-term for EA, but it doesn't for us."

Kotick went on to suggest that EA's recent $2 billion bid for Take-Two is a reaction to Activision's recent success, which saw the company claim the top of the US games publishing heap shortly after brokering a merger with Vivendi in early December of last year.

"You're going to start thinking about what you need to do to maintain your lead," Kotick added. "Without getting into too many of the details of Take-Two, we really like businesses where if we take the risk, we get the reward."