Updated: So much for this, and as we said below, our sources also denied a deal: Sony (NYSE: SNE) is denying any such sale: “Sony Online Entertainment is not for sale and the report that Zapak is purchasing Sony Online Entertainment is completely erroneous and false,” a company spokesperson for San Diego-based Sony Online told Reuters.

Original post: This, of all the places, in Sunday ET: Zapak, the online gaming portal from the Reliance ADA Group is reportedly set to buy out online gaming company Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) for around $300 million (Rs. 1200 crores). The report claims that the deal will be finalized within the next few days. The deal will give Zapak rights to all the content from Sony Online. The story claims that Sony Online Entertainment, which has some big online games such as Everquest, PlanetSide, Star War Galaxies and Vanguard, has revenues of around $150 million. So the buying price is just two times revenues? Zapak had planned to spend $100 million over three years, so this is a substantial jump in the outlay.

Zapak aims to reduce the content and marketing cost of publishing side by relocating the studios to India, the story says. “This will reduce the cost drastically from $30 million to $10 million, which will give us the advantage to channelise our funds towards marketing and other activities,” an official quoted in the story said.

I’ve been trying to contact execs in Zapak for some confirmation on this for a while now, but haven’t been able to get through. Some of our high level sources say that this deal isn’t happening (“No way”)...but we’re still trying to find out. More when we have more on this.