With all of the controversy that has surrounded major publisher Take Two over the recent years, one has to wonder if the chance to do it all over again, if they would have handled things differently. I mean, as popular as Grand Theft Auto is, the franchise has to be seen as a kind of albatross as well, drawing additional legal and media confrontations and scrutiny with each new release.

The most recent cause of concern for the company has come from an impending stockholder coup to overthrow the company’s management and board, as well as plans by Take two to take infamous anti-game lawyer Jack Thompson to court for his plans to keep the forthcoming Grand Theft Auto IV and Manhunt 2 from being sold in Florida.

Today, amidst all of these goings on, [url=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13186]Gamasutra has reported[/url] that Take Two has postponed its annual meeting from March 23 until March 29 “…to provide additional time to review the proposed actions of the shareholder group and also to evaluate alternative courses of actions that could potentially be presented to the shareholders.” One of these courses of action being considered by Take Two is “a possible sale of the Company,” though at this point nothing is for certain.

So, playing devil’s advocate, should Take Two find itself the unwilling child of another company, one has to assume that the surrogate parent would want to clean house, and change things so the same black cloud that has hovered over Take Two does not follow it post mortem. Could we be seeing the last of Grand Theft Auto and other controversial properties and return to the more forgettable days of Take Two pre-Rockstar?