A month ago we published a story with the headline 'Take-Two Interactive Acquires Codemasters', and in hindsight that was probably premature as the decision was still at the board approval stage. Today comes word that EA has thrown its own money-laden hat into the ring with the announcement that it has reached an acquisition agreement for the developer of the Dirt and F1 series of racing games.

“We believe there is a deeply compelling opportunity in bringing together Codemasters and Electronic Arts to create amazing and innovative new racing games for fans," said Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts. "Our industry is growing, the racing category is growing, and together we will be positioned to lead in a new era of racing entertainment."

“Electronic Arts and Codemasters have a shared ambition to lead the video game racing category," added Gerhard Florin, the Chairman of Codemasters. "The Board of Codemasters firmly believes the company would benefit from EA’s knowledge, resources and extensive global scale – both overall and specifically within the racing sector. We feel this union would provide an exciting and prosperous future for Codemasters, allowing our teams to create, launch and service bigger and better games to an extremely passionate audience.”

The value of the deal is US$1.2 billion, which is a pretty staggering amount of money considering Codemasters position as multi-platform developer of racing games. No doubt this deal is all about cars, adding Formula One, DiRT, DiRT Rally, Grid and Project Cars to EA’s own Need for Speed stable of racers. The deal also put the brakes on 2K expanding its sports line-up into racing titles.

Putting our gamer hats back on, we'd love to see Codemasters have a crack at Burnout and Need For Speed.