Scidos - SCi are the UK's No1 (Excl. DN)

Good luck in your second "retirement" Darren. Like you, I've been spending more time perusing the SCi boards than I would have liked, but for different reasons (I'm still nursing a loss courtesy of the morons who ran Eidos!).

I agree with most of your analysis re the TW deal. SCi's advisers apparently recommended the 10% stake while TW were pushing for 20%. If true, that suggests it was to leave the door open for a counter bid, although Jane Cavangah's comments when the deal was announced indicated that this is a stepping stone to a full blown bid from TW, provided both parties are happy with the way things go.

I feel confident about the prospects for the big upcoming titles, Midway, TR:A and K&L. The previews and press seem very positive about all three and I'm expecting each to sell in excess of 1M copies (hopefully 2M in the case of TR). Added to the 1M+ sales of JC and that would be a very successful year, with 3 new franchises established in JC, Midway and K&L.

The disappointments so far have the poor sales of TRL on the Nintendo platforms and the quick disapperance of CM07 from the all format top 40, despite the improving reviews. It's still in the top 10 of the PC chart and hopefully the XBox/PS2/PSP of CM will give sales a boost in the New Year.

FWIW, provided all of the above come to pass and the TW relationship works out well, I think there will be an offer from TW for the rest of the business during the next 12-18 months unless another party tries to get in first, as per Darren's post. We shall see..