Microsoft May Take Over Electronic Arts
There's chatter that Microsoft may purchase Electronic Arts.
Is Microsoft planning to purchase publishing giant Electronic Arts? That is the "unsubstantiated talk" which surfaced as of yesterday, with Reuters even jumping aboard the rumor bandwagon reporting that EA stocks took a sudden 8-percent leap. While this is the first we've heard of the noise, the idea isn't unfathomable; in fact, it could be considered karma given EA's semi-hostile track record with other companies.
But Frederic Ruffy, an options strategist at WhatsTrading.com in New York, turned his nose up at the idea, calling it "unsubstantiated chatter." Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at Global Equities Research, even added that EA isn't even on Microsoft's "radar screen" based on observations made by industry contacts. "Our contacts just don't see Microsoft buying Electronic Arts, no synergies whatsoever, and also not Microsoft's corporate primary focus right now," he said.
Analysts say that takeover rumors usually spark up about once every quarter. In addition to Microsoft's supposed love interest with EA, THQ is also the target of a separate takeover by another company, with its shares soaring up a whopping 13-percent as of Tuesday. Take-Two Interactive has also been a primary target for takeover as of late, with EA failing to acquire the company last year; Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner Inc. are now rumored to be circling the Redwood City, California company.
But as for the current rumor regarding Microsoft's supposed interest, the company refused o comment; an Electronic Arts representative was not available as well. Could this rumor be self-injected by EA traders to temporarily boost stock value? Is the rumor legit? Some analysts don't think so, but it's certainly not improbable that Microsoft has an eye for the publisher. After all, EA's library isn't too shabby.
UPDATE: Like a good government conspiracy, Microsoft has denied everything.
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WTH!!!!???
"May"
"Rumor"
"Microsoft has denied everything"
Case closed.
Truthfully, I would welcome the takeover of EA by Microsoft. EA is the larget game publisher right now, and their CEO isn't really that good. I think it would end up better managed.
Yes.. lets leave it to the analyst of wall street to say that nothing will happen. Just like the banking down turn and such..
You put two big, bulky, bloated companies together and you get ....
EA sucked for the longest time. I viewed them as a evil company. Thankfully they are changing... I like what they are doing with the battlefield series.
Microsoft may not be perfect, but they do a hell of a lot better job publishing games than EA does (as the saying goes, "EA: where good game franchises go to die"). Perhaps if MS bought them out, we could see some resurrections from the EA graveyard.
All EA titles going Games For WIndows Live (including Mass Effect 2) == Massive instant head explosions all over the world.
I can't wait to see EA backing exclusively a console with a failure rate of 40%. It's like attracting customer by shooting shotgun in the air at the front of the store.
Noooooooooooo, Don't let the convicted monopolist have a majority control of games. Gaming would loose big. MS would start forcing their Games for Windows Live service (GFWL), a Steam Wannabe service onto PC gamers big time. Game selections would go way down for me because I would not buy their crap if it insisted I use GFWL.
Microsoft may not be perfect, but they do a hell of a lot better job publishing games than EA does (as the saying goes, "EA: where good game franchises go to die"). Perhaps if MS bought them out, we could see some resurrections from the EA graveyard.
What about... ? Mass Effect, Dead SPace, Dante Inferno, Mirror Edge, Crysis...
Microsoft got... Halo? ... Gears of War and Alan Wake...
Well, with money you can steal all the games you want isn't it...
^ Talking about Halo and Gears... and Alan Wake...
WTH Remedy, pissing off you PC fanbase!
i actually think this is a good idea
what would be a better idea if google purchased EA... but if this happens, it'll be more competition with Valve's STEAM, and I always welcome competition
WHERE'S MY $5 MASS EFFECT? I WANT IT NAU!
I'm not sure if I would care either way
I think it's not a bad idee for gaming: EA releases are always buggy and need lots of updates before working properly, MS might change that, i hope... (Sorry for bad english)
Normally I would be against this, but I think this would improve the gaming industry. Besides it can't hurt given the direction EA is headed in. And the fact this would put Microsoft under more scrutiny, would cause them not to cheat consumers as much as EA has or if they had bought out a different market.
Never gonna happen, but if it did, just think about Peter Moore.
"I just left this company!"
THIS IS HUGE NEWS!!
I think it is probably just a rumor and nothing more but I don't think I would mind Microsoft taking over EA.
I'm completly against this... If microsoft aquires EA then as somebody else said:
"Xbox and PC exclusive title"
I think it will hurt the gaming industry, competitvly speaking....
EA sucks, and it makes perfect sense for an equally crappy company to take it over.
Go ahead MS, buy EA and you both can go down in flames.
All EA titles going Games For WIndows Live (including Mass Effect 2) == Massive instant head explosions all over the world.I can't wait to see EA backing exclusively a console with a failure rate of 40%. It's like attracting customer by shooting shotgun in the air at the front of the store.
you know i'mt tired of peopel pulling soem numvber out of thiere ass all the tiem on xbox 360 failrates
before i go further i'd liek to say i'm mostlya pc gamer , i just hate seeing people pull FALSE and total shit numbers out on any case , MS has never actually released an inside report on fail rates , some web site did a poll , but this poll only ammounted to a very select few "box" owners that went to that web site, not the whole country over. SO please stop throwing BULL shit numbers around like they are god's law
Noooooooooooo, Don't let the convicted monopolist have a majority control of games. Gaming would loose big. MS would start forcing their Games for Windows Live service (GFWL), a Steam Wannabe service onto PC gamers big time. Game selections would go way down for me because I would not buy their crap if it insisted I use GFWL.
what's wrong with steam ? I say it is a good shot better than ANY other DRM , I'd like to see more companies do it the valve way , i thin k MSD SHOULD make their game for windows even more like steam than it already is. would you prefer all pc games come stocked full of root kit drm's ?
Last but not least i think MS buying EA would be f-ing awsome, i only hope would be that this would bassically untie all teh licenses EA owns on sports franchises. I was pissed when EA bough all rigfhts to every thing NFL and a much better game series got killed becasue of EA (NFL 2k series, by sega )
EA sucks, no one will miss them.
I surely hope they aren't gonna buy EA. Complain what you will about EA quality (or lack thereof), but combining the biggest software house on earth with the second biggest gaming software house is a really bad thing for consumers.
ps. "semi-hostile track record" ? Semi-hostile? They buy companies just to kill them! Killed a lot of nice development houses by now.
M$ has had fairly good track record as a studio, they don't even do the crap 'budget' games like other studios/publishers. Lets face it, they can't do too much damage with EA's infrastructure... now if it was Valve/STEAM, head for the hills
EA sucks, no one will miss them.
Wasn't (the oh so mighty) Crysis (atleast)published by EA.
If that would happen, indeed you guys said, fanboys wold go nuts and cry over their PS3 or something.. poor fellas. Anyhow, MS has money so they might help them rez some titles since MS owuld be more than willing specially since a lot of them would be for both their 360 console and PC and for MS thats more sales for their products and more ppl interested. I got both so Id end up buying it if good stuff
Man.....if this where to happen Sony and Nintendo would really lose out on some pretty cool games EA comes out with yearly...with the exception of Madden;-)
maybe now EA will get some quality support for patches in their damn games...
Actually this would be a bad thing. Some of you don't know but Microsoft does port some of its games to other consoles. Microsoft is a business. Whether they make a game only for PC and 360 or not, they go where the money is. Microsoft has a few games for Nintendo.
Hell leave it to Microsoft to create a multi-platform game for PS2,PS3, Wii and 360. (Think Madden Football or NFS)
@back_by_demand
"If MS owned EA do you think it could lead to convergence by the time the next Xbox comes out?"
PC gamers already have to put up with inferior port jobs with crappy graphics and controls why should we welcome all MS PC games to be crippled down to crapbox 360 specs for our PCs?
Great...something else for Microsoft to screw up.