February 24^th, 2005 (1:29am) - Sources close to the UK-based publisher Eidos have confirmed that the company is just about to be sold to the media giant News Corporation (FOX TV, 20th Century Fox, Searchlight Pictures), with the deal being formally announced within the coming week.

"We’re just really glad the News Corp thing is out in the open now," a source at the company told GamesIndustry.biz in the wake of their report which linked News Corp to the sale of Eidos.

"Keep an eye on it over the next week," he continued. "It could happen on Thursday, it could happen on Monday - we’re not sure, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel now."

Eidos has been very public in their hunt for a buyer over the past few months, and have been in negotiations with a number of rivals to News Corp; only News Crop has openly stated its interest in getting into the games market.

Rumors that a deal had been close to being finalized came from a number of signs through Eidos’ firms, such as a hiring freeze across the company and reports that development studios have been told to prepare presentations on each of their projects for the new owners.

Being a best case scenario for Eidos, they will be able to continue functioning as a publisher under the News Corp umbrella. Had they been sold to a rival publisher, it would be expected that much of the publishing end of the business would be shut down, with only valuable properties and studios being retained.

"Everyone within Eidos knows that when it gets sold, it’s going to be sold as a group with a new flag on it," GamesIndustry.biz’s source confirmed this morning. "It’s not going to be broken up in the same way Criterion was."