It’s no secret these days that Microsoft has a little problem when it comes to software; namely, having enough exclusives to combat Sony’s PlayStation 4 games onslaught with titles like God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part II, and more.
Well, it seems Microsoft is indeed looking to shore up its software output, but it could be doing so at great cost for the gaming community. In a report by Polygon, the most “recent” acquisition murmurs the publication has heard (from a “reliable source close to Microsoft,” even), is that Microsoft is looking to acquire Electronic Arts, more commonly known as EA.
Some of the names being thrown around as possible acquisitions by Microsoft are, frankly, astounding, even unthinkable. But the fact that they are doing the rounds is instructive. The most recent one we heard (from a reliable source close to Microsoft) was, in fact, Electronic Arts. We also heard a whisper about Valve and about Korean outfit PUBG Corp., which Microsoft last year signed to a timed exclusive for its hit survival shooter, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Important to note that Microsoft has a massive war chest of at least $130 billion, and given the market capitalization of EA is at $35 billion, well, you can see how this can work out financially.
Of course, treat this with a huge bag of salt right now. However, if this indeed come true, there’s a lot of repercussions that will be felt by the gaming community. Chief among them is not being able to play EA-published titles on any platform other than Microsoft’s. Sure, there’s a chance Microsoft will let the games from a Microsoft-owned EA be released on other platforms, but if that happened, it would kind of make the acquisition pointless, no?
Will this actually happen? For gamers’ sake, I hope not. While EA’s internal studios can splinter off and create their own thing, thus leaving Microsoft with the brands, that’s going to be a long ordeal.
Would you want Microsoft to acquire EA? If not, what steps can Microsoft take to bolster their first-party offerings?
MS is now worth over 700 billion, about 133 billion in cash, and only Apple is above it, and only Google as a peer. MS can do what they want.
BUT this article is written for idiots, that’s not how a company purchases another…. for one they are purchased at a premium, and second, even if they buy it…rarely do companies use cash reserves aka war chest as people say to buy it.
Reading this makes my head hurt, ok…. so this is a business, and its about making money. You do not buy a company to not make money. So, like minecraft, it makes sense to keep it multiplat for the purposes of making money. Companies dont buy companies to feed stupid fanboys, multiple analyst have already shown that exclusives done win so called console wars.
I am on the fence. On the one hand I don’t really care about them holding it from PlayStation because I primarily game on PC, but I have every single platform, so that doesn’t affect me. On the other hand the Microsoft Store is AWFUL and the integration with the also awful Xbox app is well…awful. They need to take some notes from Steam and Uplay on a nice easy in game overlay. On top of that Origin’s overlay is awful in my experience as well and can sometimes make joining up with friends frustrating.
On a positive note I do enjoy their support of crossplay so I can play with my PC Friends and my Xbox Friends. I also see a lot of promise in their Xbox Game Pass which is shaping up to be a really great value. If they acquire EA then I would assume their titles would be included in the Xbox Game Pass program. (Which also works on PC.) This is actually a massive benefit and if the rumors are true would be my assumption as to why they are wanting to purchase EA.
Will never happen.
Reading this makes my head hurt, ok…. so this is a business, and its about making money. You do not buy a company to not make money. So, like minecraft, it makes sense to keep it multiplat for the purposes of making money. Companies dont buy companies to feed stupid fanboys, multiple analyst have already shown that exclusives done win so called console wars.
MS is now worth over 700 billion, about 133 billion in cash, and only Apple is above it, and only Google as a peer. MS can do what they want.
BUT this article is written for idiots, that’s not how a company purchases another…. for one they are purchased at a premium, and second, even if they buy it…rarely do companies use cash reserves aka war chest as people say to buy it.
I am on the fence. On the one hand I don’t really care about them holding it from PlayStation because I primarily game on PC, but I have every single platform, so that doesn’t affect me. On the other hand the Microsoft Store is AWFUL and the integration with the also awful Xbox app is well…awful. They need to take some notes from Steam and Uplay on a nice easy in game overlay. On top of that Origin’s overlay is awful in my experience as well and can sometimes make joining up with friends frustrating.
On a positive note I do enjoy their support of crossplay so I can play with my PC Friends and my Xbox Friends. I also see a lot of promise in their Xbox Game Pass which is shaping up to be a really great value. If they acquire EA then I would assume their titles would be included in the Xbox Game Pass program. (Which also works on PC.) This is actually a massive benefit and if the rumors are true would be my assumption as to why they are wanting to purchase EA.
Will never happen.