Rumor: MS is looking into acquiring EA

[karmakid]

. The things that make EA money like the NFL exclusivity would be gone, it just doesn't seem like on the surface it would benefit MS to take over one of the biggest companies in the industry with the worst PR. They'd be much better off trying to go after take two if they are looking to spend big money, GTA , RDR and other IP's would be much better gets than anything EA has IMO.

Why would the NFL exclusivity leave? And would it be a bad thing if it did? I think the madden name would keep its sales at bay...I highly doubt whatever developers that made visual concepts old nfl 2k games are still with rockstar.


I once got madden for my bday, played t once and forgot about it, then gave it away. Had it been a 2k game then It’d be packed away in my storage bin with the rest of my Dreamcast stuff.

 

[JinCA]

Why would the NFL exclusivity leave? And would it be a bad thing if it did? I think the madden name would keep its sales at bay...I highly doubt whatever developers that made visual concepts old nfl 2k games are still with rockstar.


I once got madden for my bday, played t once and forgot about it, then gave it away. Had it been a 2k game then It’d be packed away in my storage bin with the rest of my Dreamcast stuff.

These deals tend to have clauses in them that keep the license from being exclusive to one platform, probably due to sales targets and making it harder to broaden the audience. They are also the reason we get a new game every year instead of just roster updates, everyone wants to blame the game company but NFL, NBA, WWE etc all require annual releases.

Look at it this way, has MS taking over any other company really worked out so far? Rare? Lionhead? Bungie? one has been stuck making garbage, one was closed and one asked to leave, what would they do with something as big as EA and all of it's dev teams?

 

[yankeessuck]

These deals tend to have clauses in them that keep the license from being exclusive to one platform, probably due to sales targets and making it harder to broaden the audience. They are also the reason we get a new game every year instead of just roster updates, everyone wants to blame the game company but NFL, NBA, WWE etc all require annual releases.

Look at it this way, has MS taking over any other company really worked out so far? Rare? Lionhead? Bungie? one has been stuck making garbage, one was closed and one asked to leave, what would they do with something as big as EA and all of it's dev teams?

Losing Bungie might have been unfortunate but Microsoft buying them benefited them both big time

 

[karmakid]

Look at it this way, has MS taking over any other company really worked out so far? Rare? Lionhead? Bungie? one has been stuck making garbage, one was closed and one asked to leave, what would they do with something as big as EA and all of it's dev teams?

Mojang... it may be the only one I can think of at the moment but sometimes all you need is one, no?


Doesn’t MS still own a small percentage of Bungie?

 

[Andy]

I don't see it happening. If MS spent all that money (probably 50 billion to acquire EA, worth 35), then made the games exclusive, the worth of the company would be cut in half (more, actually, since they'd lose 2/3 of their customer base). So they pay 50 billion for a company that ends up being worth 15?

Let's remember it's one unnamed source in a Polygon article where it was buried in the text; it wasn't even the headline. Everyone has just run with it.

 

[GordoSan]

Losing Bungie might have been unfortunate but Microsoft buying them benefited them both big time

Yeah, I agree. Microsoft needed Bungie... until they didn't. They kept a lot of the key talent anyway. They would have lost just as many, if not more of the designers by not letting them go. They were actually a huge asset, but not as huge as the Halo IP. Now they make royalties of both of them. So what that Destiny is on both systems? Halo still sells boat loads, no matter what the internet thinks.

 

[karmakid]

I don't see it happening. If MS spent all that money (probably 50 billion to acquire EA, worth 35), then made the games exclusive, the worth of the company would be cut in half (more, actually, since they'd lose 2/3 of their customer base). So they pay 50 billion for a company that ends up being worth 15?

Let's remember it's one unnamed source in a Polygon article where it was buried in the text; it wasn't even the headline. Everyone has just run with it.

More like 1/3 no? Since it’d be the ps market, pc sales matter and if they’d really like to keep that cross play love going then they could release games for the switch as well and market it as a sort of trinity of that

 

[JinCA]

Losing Bungie might have been unfortunate but Microsoft buying them benefited them both big time

I'm talking long term and the cost of doing that was a lot less than acquiring one of the biggest 3rd party publishers in the industry.

 

[JinCA]

Mojang... it may be the only one I can think of at the moment but sometimes all you need is one, no?


Doesn’t MS still own a small percentage of Bungie?

Mojang has only been part of MS for a couple of years, they also have only been doing Minecraft the whole time, not like a lot of change has been made there. EA coming on board would just make MS's current problems worse IMO, they don't do anything that MS already doesn't do themselves other than sports, it'd be one thing if they could be picked up on the cheap but that's not the case. They'd be better off targeting Take Two or ZeniMax if they are looking to spend a ton of money, those companies aren't dependent on licensed content.

 

[Zer0beaT]

The article seems more about Xbox lack of exclusives and all the games they've cancelled in the recent past etc.

Seems more like an article taking a dig and tagging a crazy rumour to it to make it spread like crazy.

But if MS did buy EA....cool not my money!

Maybe they could get DICE to make Rallisport Challenge 3 and get us another Skate game, I'd be happy. Don't care about the rest of EA's games personally.

 

[Andy]

More like 1/3 no? Since it’d be the ps market, pc sales matter and if they’d really like to keep that cross play love going then they could release games for the switch as well and market it as a sort of trinity of that

Assuming by 1/3 you mean value remaining (i.e., 2/3 loss), yes. I said that in the parentheses. I'm just doing a very crude analysis, based on 2 to 1, PS to Xbox.

 

[Mcmasters]

Remember Microsoft also acquired LinkedIn for 26B. They didn't seem to have a problem with that. I dunno. We'll see..

 

[menace-uk-]

But their sports alone will do a big favor.

MS can really buy anyone. They have trees that grow money all the time.

Maybe, but that doesn't correlate with the reason for the aquisition.

 

[menace-uk-]

No but it would be a solution to making money for the Xbox division. If you have no desire to open more studios or creating new IP’s you acquire EA and make up that money by collecting on

Battlefield
Starwars
Madden
FIFA
Titanfall

Sales on other platforms. Having ALL the IP under the Microsoft umbrella allows them to be front and center of doing a Netflix type of service across all platforms.

Yes, but that wasn't the reason given in the article for the purchase.

If the exclusives backlash is the reason then this buyout makes no sense at all.

 

[Sasquatch Montana]

I don't see it happening. If MS spent all that money (probably 50 billion to acquire EA, worth 35), then made the games exclusive, the worth of the company would be cut in half (more, actually, since they'd lose 2/3 of their customer base). So they pay 50 billion for a company that ends up being worth 15?

Xbox sales would increase to compensate and Playstation sales decrease likewise.

Then begins the Transition. They start out supporting both.
Then diminish the value of the Playstation version. Increase the RRP. Crapify the graphics. Ship without online and full of bugs.

Once its 90% Xbox the 10% other can "after careful consideration" be discontinued.

We're already seeing them do that with Minecraft. Superduper graphics pack diminished the value of the non SDGP versions and raised the minimum spec. Non cross play versions are pariahs.....and dlc is 6 months behind the Xbox version.

PUBG and Steam while decent acquisitions dont do much for Xbox or affect playstation.

EA is straight up huge for Xbox and an asset denial for Playstation. Its an advance 12 spaces to win move.

Its expensive, but if you want to make waves you dont use pebbles. And what else are they gonna do with their warchest. Watch it gather interest? Or buy cool s***.

 

[The Wolf King]

Such as? Minecraft seems to be getting the same content on all platforms apart from cross play as that's down to Sony

 

[Z A C K]

I don't see this happening.

 

[Nervusbreakdown]

Such as? Minecraft seems to be getting the same content on all platforms apart from cross play as that's down to Sony

Not the super duper pack. Sooner or later the update will end because MS want to push those on ps4 over to get the lastest. Nin switch will have the latest version over ps4.

 

[yankeessuck]

Yeah, I agree. Microsoft needed Bungie... until they didn't. They kept a lot of the key talent anyway. They would have lost just as many, if not more of the designers by not letting them go. They were actually a huge asset, but not as huge as the Halo IP. Now they make royalties of both of them. So what that Destiny is on both systems? Halo still sells boat loads, no matter what the internet thinks.

They didn't really keep a lot of key talent but yeah they had to let them go because they would have been left with an empty shell. In a perfect world they would have kept them as they were there best studio and they could have got another huge exclusive IP out of them but once it got to that point it was over

I'm talking long term and the cost of doing that was a lot less than acquiring one of the biggest 3rd party publishers in the industry.

In the long term Xbox exists because Microsoft bought Bungie.

Xbox sales would increase to compensate and Playstation sales decrease likewise.

Then begins the Transition. They start out supporting both.
Then diminish the value of the Playstation version. Increase the RRP. Crapify the graphics. Ship without online and full of bugs.

Once its 90% Xbox the 10% other can "after careful consideration" be discontinued.

We're already seeing them do that with Minecraft. Superduper graphics pack diminished the value of the non SDGP versions and raised the minimum spec. Non cross play versions are pariahs.....and dlc is 6 months behind the Xbox version.

PUBG and Steam while decent acquisitions dont do much for Xbox or affect playstation.

EA is straight up huge for Xbox and an asset denial for Playstation. Its an advance 12 spaces to win move.

Its expensive, but if you want to make waves you dont use pebbles. And what else are they gonna do with their warchest. Watch it gather interest? Or buy cool s***.

So they paid 2 billion for an IP and don't make it exclusive but will spend 40 billion and do differently? Its a nice dream.

If Microsoft is all about services and not about boxes then putting Sony out of business wouldn't be their priority.

 

[OneBadMutha]

These rumors might just be one persons best guess but they are logical based on everything Nadella and Spencer have said and done regarding gaming.

I’d compare this buyout to Minecraft more than Rare. Microsoft is looking to get their brand on everything. They want Game Pass on everything including PlayStation. I suspect that Xbox hardware will be just one smaller piece of what they hope Xbox brand becomes in the next 5 to 10 years.

Even if PlayStation says no to Game Pass, the Big multiplayer games as service games will remain multiplat. Microsoft wants to monetize services as much as possible. Not promote hardware if they don’t need to. The success of Minecraft post buyout, Booties promotion, Spencer saying only a couple weeks ago that he wants gamers to keep playing games on the hardware they already own and then the Game Pass announcement makes their intentions very clear.

Buying EA gives Microsoft the best of both worlds. It’s low risk from that standpoint. Continue to sell all EAs games full price on Switch, PlayStation and PC while bolstering Game Pass. If Valve can’t come up with a mutual relationship and doesn’t get bought, Microsoft now has the foundation for a PC store that’s ahead of Windows Store. Either Microsoft makes Xbox hardware more valuable because Game Pass isn’t on PlayStation or they get Game Pass on PlayStation. There’s no loss either way. It’s win or win bigger.

I could see them starting more studios to leverage EAs single player licenses that EA seems uninterested in rebooting like Mass Effect, Burnout and Dead Space. I could see those going Xbox and Game Pass exclusive but the GAAS stuff is where EA makes their money and that stuff will remain multiplat.

 

[OneBadMutha]

Honestly I’m looking forward to one of the big 4 doing a full console and be 3rd party at the same time. Valve tried and failed. I think Microsoft is poised to succeed where Xbox hardware is nothing more than a Steambox and then they are 3rd party. I’d welcome Halo returning to having a massive player base. This “my piece of plastic is more desirable than yours” is so last gen.

 

[The Wolf King]

Not the super duper pack. Sooner or later the update will end because MS want to push those on ps4 over to get the lastest. Nin switch will have the latest version over ps4.

Looking around it's only the PS4 not getting it(at the moment) as a result of them refusing cross play

 

[Sasquatch Montana]

So they paid 2 billion for an IP and don't make it exclusive but will spend 40 billion and do differently? Its a nice dream.

Minecraft was already multi when they bought it. It would be the equivilent of them buying EA and issuing a recall on Battlefield 1.

At this point its largely resolving itself, we arent going to see much support or drive for the 360, PS3, Vita, WiiU, and soon 3DS versions of Minecraft with discontinued hardware.

The PS4 version is being abandoned due to non compliance so thats just the mobile, PC and Switch versions left.

This is a service game and EAs are iterative. Its one thing to retroactively retract support and another to not support it going forward due to a change of ownership

 

[yankeessuck]

Honestly I’m looking forward to one of the big 4 doing a full console and be 3rd party at the same time. Valve tried and failed. I think Microsoft is poised to succeed where Xbox hardware is nothing more than a Steambox and then they are 3rd party. I’d welcome Halo returning to having a massive player base. This “my piece of plastic is more desirable than yours” is so last gen.

Sony not having Xbox competing like they do now would not be a good thing for consumers

Minecraft was already multi when they bought it. It would be the equivilent of them buying EA and issuing a recall on Battlefield 1.

At this point its largely resolving itself, we arent going to see much support or drive for the 360, PS3, Vita, WiiU, and soon 3DS versions of Minecraft with discontinued hardware.

The PS4 version is being abandoned due to non compliance so thats just the mobile, PC and Switch versions left.

This is a service game and EAs are iterative. Its one thing to retroactively retract support and another to not support it going forward due to a change of ownership

They didn't just retroactively support games. They kept releasing it on new platforms.

 

[Registered User 1]

I doubt it will happen. Too many people to have to shift around and whatnot. They don't need two publishing houses, and if they wanted the sports contracts, couldn't they just bid for them?

If they did get the company, they should keep the games multiplat, but just release them a month later or something. That tends to get right up a dudes goat when they have to wait, especially when it's those soccer people.

Throw in an exclusive identical stadium, and voila.

 

[Andy]

Microsoft Buying EA For Xbox Wouldn't Make Any Sense

[....] This has resulted in a number of breathless gasps among the community (and even a tick up for EA stock), but before that gets too out of control, it should be noted that A) the idea of “looking into” an acquisition like this is not terribly unusual and B) in this specific instance, it’s probably not going to happen for a number of reasons.

The points in favor of this idea seem to be just:

• 
  
  • Microsoft is a big company with a lot of money
  • Big companies buy other big companies all the time
  • Microsoft already has something of a relationship with EA
  • Microsoft can buy EA and make all its games exclusives, giving the Xbox a huge leg up

Ehhh not so fast. First of all, this rumor ignores the fact that a company like Microsoft is probably looking at a zillion other companies, large and small, for acquisition, so “considering” EA should not mean all that much, even if it’s the most recent place they might be eyeing.

Secondly, for EA specifically, this doesn’t make sense for a number of reasons. I asked Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter to explain.

“The reason Microsoft would have trouble buying a publisher is that the publishers make more money on the PlayStation platform than on the Microsoft platform,” Pachter told me. “At best, a purchase of EA would allow them to capture 60% of net income, and likely far less, so it wouldn’t pencil out financially. This might have made sense back in 2001 (when Xbox launched), but at these prices, it’s hard to justify. Also, keep in mind that more than half of EA revenue is licensed, so Disney and FIFA might not be happy if sales of their games were cut in half.”

Pachter goes on to say he doesn’t think there’s a chance this happens, and if anyone bought EA it could be someone like Disney or Amazon looking to get deeper into the games business, but it wouldn’t be Microsoft.

So, because a huge publisher like EA would not want to go from selling games on 100 million+ consoles between Xbox One and PS4 to just ~35 million or so on Xbox One if Microsoft suddenly made all their games exclusives, that would be a tough sell. And the licensing issue is key as well. Imagine being unable to play FIFA on PS4. The world would riot.

Microsoft could pull a Mojang and like Minecraft, allow the games to continue to be multiplatform after the purchase. But in that case, why bother with the purchase at all if the entire point is to try to bolster your exclusive games line-up?

A more logical purchase would be for Microsoft to scoop up talented developers, not entire enormous publishers, like the way we recently saw EA fully acquire Respawn.

[....] I suppose we should never say never when it comes to EA and Microsoft, as stranger acquisitions have happened, but it really doesn’t make all that much sense for either party, and I would not expect it to come to fruition. Microsoft will likely have to solve this problem some other way.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...for-xbox-wouldnt-make-any-sense/#47d9e24d690d


Pachter said it won't happen. You know what that means.

 

[Dno69]

Pachter though?

 

[Mcmasters]

Pachter though?

FR! Patcher said it won't happen so you can almost count on that s*** happening like glaze on a donut.

 

[Sasquatch Montana]

They didn't just retroactively support games. They kept releasing it on new platforms.

Well yes. They might as well, it was already on 8 platforms.The sanctity of exclusivity was already defiled when it came to PS3.

Doesn't mean Nintendo or anyone else is entitled to Minecraft 2 when it arrives.

 

[Mcmasters]

I did some reading on this a bit last night. You gotta think; even with SoT, PUBG, Fable and Horizon 4 (not to mention a few others..) would that be enough to convince the gaming community that Xbox isn't a "second platform" (meaning after Pro and Switch) The answer to that is, no. People would still clamor that Xbox has no games. It won't have the impact that Microsoft needs to shake that unfortunate stigma.

But an acquisition like EA would clear that right up. It's a perfect fit. A healthy stable of developers with juggernaut franchises all under one roof. Some of them would be redundant, yes. But a bit of clearing house - maybe join a few teams, etc. I dunno, that is all a bit over my head on that end. Leave MS to the particulars.

Still no mention from EA or Microsoft debunking this rumor either.