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Vincent Padois, head tutor at the Pierre and Marie Curie University who teaches robotics and is babysitting the Paris ICub, makes a demonstration with ICub robot, a ?hybrid embodied cognitive system for a humanoid robot" about 1 metre (3.2 feet) high, at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris September 4, 2009. Six versions of ICub exist in laboratories across Europe, where scientists are painstakingly tweaking its electronic brain to make it capable of learning, just like a human child and hoping it will learn how to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances, offering new insights into the development of human consciousness. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

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    Take-Two CEO: Video game mergers "inevitable"

    NEW YORK
    Mon Dec 3, 2007 4:19pm EST

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    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO.O) Chief Executive Ben Feder said on Monday consolidation in the $40 billion video-game industry is inevitable as growth continues.

    Technology  |  Stocks

    Feder, whose comment came a day after Vivendi (VIV.PA) said it would take control of Activision Inc (ATVI.O) in a $9.9 billion deal, noted the cost to develop a game was very close to the outlay for production and marketing of a Hollywood film in the early 1990s.

    The advent of new gaming hardware with high-definition graphics and online capabilities has sent game production costs soaring in recent years, with top titles thought to cost $30 million or more.

    "I do believe that consolidation ultimately is inevitable," Feder said at a UBS investment conference.

    "Video-game development is not getting any cheaper. It's a capital-intensive business, and I don't see that going away. That will drive some of the smaller competitors out."

    Shares in Take-Two, which makes the mega-hit "Grand Theft Auto" franchise, rose 8.7 percent to close at $16.28 on Monday as the Vivendi-Activision deal boosted investor optimism that other publishers could be takeover targets.

    (Reporting by Franklin Paul, editing by Maureen Bavdek and Braden Reddall)
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