Rumor: Microsoft may buy Epic for $1 billion. Epic responds: We’re worth $2 billion!

Gamepro strikes again. After erroneously claiming that they had the scoop on a possible sequel to Gears of War, their latest issue puts forth the speculation that Microsoft may buy Gears‘ developer, Epic for $1 billion, according to DBTechno.com.

On the surface, it may make a little bit of sense, considering Gears of War‘s great success in giving the XBox 360 a much-needed killer app and Microsoft’s need for a new high-profile developer to fill the void that Halo trilogy developer Bungie created when they left MS’ stable. However, considering that Epic is doing very fine for themselves, in so small part as a result of Gears‘ sales, this seems unlikely, as well as the tons of money they rake in on Unreal engine licenses alone.

Epic’s Mark Rein himself seemed to imply this as he told Develop that $1 billion is far too low.

I have not seen the actual GamePro article but if they’re going to make predictions about us selling Epic we would prefer if they started at $2 billion … Because we don’t want anyone thinking that we’re cheap.

Read [Gamertell] Also Read [DBTechno.com] Also Read [Develop]