Rovio Entertainment has confirmed that the Finnish studio behind the Angry Birds franchise is in talks with Sega about a possible acquisition by the Japanese game company. The Wall Street Journal revealed earlier this week that the deal could be worth up to $1 billion.

Rovio says in a statement That there is no certainty as to when the potential takeover bid will take place and if it will happen at all. The Wall Street Journal said earlier That the deal between Rovio Entertainment and Sega Sammy Holdings could be completed as early as next week, according to people familiar with the matter. A $1 billion takeover bid will reportedly be on the table. Rovio and Sega have not released any specific information about the potential acquisition and say they will release more information in due course.

In February, Rovio announced Launch of a strategic investigation and non-binding talks about a potential takeover bid of the Angry Birds maker. Previously, Rovio had also captured conversations with Israel’s Playtika, including one An offer of $738 million was made. In 2017, Chinese technology company Tencent reportedly made another $3 billion takeover bid for Rovio.

The original Angry Birds game was released in 2009, after which the game was released The franchise’s popularity waned around 2014. Over the years, several spin-offs of the mobile game have appeared, as well as Angry Birds 2. This was followed by a movie adaptation in 2016, which was a hit in terms of ticket sales. The second edition of 2019 did not have the same success. Rovio recently removed the original Angry Birds game from the Google Play Store. The iOS version has received a name change to Red’s First Flight, in order to give other Angry Birds games a bigger shot.