Titus Takes Control of Irvine’s Interplay

Titus Interactive SA, a French video-game maker, said Thursday it gained majority control of Irvine-based video-game publisher Interplay Entertainment Corp. by raising its stake in the U.S. company to 51.5%.

Titus boosted its 49.6% stake in Interplay on Monday after converting 336,000 bonds into 6.7-million shares. It now holds 27-million shares of Interplay as well as 383,354 more convertible bonds.

Interplay has lost money in nine out of the last 10 quarters. The company, known for its role-playing games that run on personal computers, received a $5-million loan from Microsoft Corp. this year to add exclusive features to a game based on “The Matrix” movie for Microsoft’s new Xbox game console.