Industry watchers and analysts can criticize Take-Two for being too reliant on the Grand Theft Auto franchise all they want, but the company's latest from 2K Boston (formerly Irrational Games), BioShock seems to be getting almost as much buzz as the infamous GTA franchise. And investors are taking notice.

Take-Two shares climbed as high as $15 on Tuesday, before closing at $14.55, an increase of 8.58 percent.

"This could be a huge profit generator for them," Mike Hickey, an analyst with Janco Partners, told The Hollywood Reporter. And this kind of diversification to its portfolio is just what the doctor ordered for Take-Two.

"Unfortunately, the key to the firm's success is also its Achilles heel. The company is heavily dependent upon the GTA franchise," Morningstar analyst Norman Young commented to Forbes. "Any misstep or change in consumer tastes with GTA would significantly impact sales."

Despite the stock boost today from BioShock, Take-Two's shares have dropped more than 22 percent over the past three months. With the delay of GTA IV, the ban of Manhunt 2 in the U.K. and AO rating in the U.S., and the fact that the SEC may levy a significant charge against Take-Two over its stock options practices, the publisher needs BioShock to do very well now more than ever.

It's certainly off to a strong start with an average of 97 on Metacritic and a perfect 10 out of 10 from GameDaily. Now it's just a matter of waiting for the sales tally to come in.

[UPDATE] Nollenberger Capital Partners analyst Todd Greenwald has now weighed in with his own research note. He said that although BioShock is great, "it's not the next GTA." Moreover, he's worried about investors "getting carried away."

"While many initially expected Bioshock to be a modest hit and sell 500K to 1 million units, it now seems clear to us that it may sell in the 1.5-2.0 million unit range," he continued. "However, with the stock up over 20% in the last few days, we have heard of expectations in the 3-4 million unit range, which we believe are unrealistic... keep in mind that Bioshock is only being released on one console platform (Xbox 360), and will likely be limited by its intense, hard-core, first-person-shooter style of game. The game is very dark, very complex, and will have a hard time penetrating the mass market, in our view."

Greenwald added, "Bioshock [is] not likely to reach Gears of War-like success levels. While Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War has sold over 3 million units, it was a more accessible game, had more marketing support, and was released in the holiday window. Furthermore, Bioshock's window of success may close a bit in four weeks as Halo 3 hits stores on September 25."

Greenwald also took the time to briefly address the buyout rumors that have been circulating about Take-Two. "We...believe some of the stock's recent rise is due to expectations that TTWO could be acquired in the near term, potentially by EA. We view this as unlikely, at least not in the next 3-6 months. Take-Two continues to be mired in legal and regulatory matters (SEC, NY District Attorney, etc), and likely needs to settle these and show more evidence of stability before an acquisition can materialize. We also believe that new management at Take-Two would prefer to first clean up the company and bring GTA IV to market before it would start entertaining takeout bids."

[Note: we initially falsely attributed the comments in this update to Mike Hickey, not Todd Greenwald. We apologize for this error.]