In a frank interview with American news agency Forbes, Sega of America president Simon Jeffery has labelled EA a “petulant child” in reference to the way it has conducted its attempted acquisition or Grand Theft Auto publisher Take Two.

“It feels like EA kind of needs Take-Two, but it probably shouldn't have made it so public that it really needed it,” he stated. “I think that it's losing some investor confidence. The stock price is at a three-year low. And it seems like EA has been the petulant child instead of the professional market leader. However it's EA, and it's really good at coming back.”

In comparison, Jeffery had nothing but praise for rival publisher Activision-Blizzard and its boss Bobby Kotick: “Bobby is one of the smartest people in the business. The way he's constructed Activision is really admirable. So many companies in this business want to be number one right away. They want to grow, and they want to grow right now.

“Bobby has grown Activision in stages over a long number of years to get to this point. And it's very calculating and very clever the way he's done that. Activision has also managed to be the first company in this business to market games properly. Anyone who can turn a hardcore brand like Call of Duty into a 10 million unit seller is outstanding. I think that Activision is going to take some catching and their profitability is unmatched.”

And of Sega’s own ambition, he Jeffery insisted that the Japanese firm would never want to be number one, but that it certainly has one of its competitors in its sights.

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“Over the last few years we've been competitive with the likes of Capcom, Midway and Eidos,” he explained. “We've doubled our market share year on year. We're now looking at THQ as our nearest competitor in terms of market share.

“We don't intend to be an Activision or an Electronic Arts – one of those juggernauts. We're actually really happy where we are. We can be small and agile and yet extremely profitable and successful. It really feels like this year we're competing with the next tier up, and THQ is a good company for us to model ourselves on and go after in terms of market share.”