Rumor mill: Apple takeover of EA!

no that is not an option, they would drastically reduce their computer based market to almost nothing of what it currently is
 
I can see it now... Redneck Ramage 5 coming out in an artsy, arrogantly minimalistic casing that says "I'm too good for you, that's why I cost double."

But I love my iPhone :-P
 
I don't think Apple could really afford it.

Taking a quick look, AAPL has 25 bil in CASH right now.

ERTS has a market cap of 6.85 bil. So yeah, its easily possible.

AAPL has a market cap of 117 bil. Its vastly bigger than ERTS.

Imagine the synergy between Apple's iStore and the library of EA games. Apple could even come out with a gaming computer (or netbook, handheld, etc) to take advantage and drive sales. Plus they could add MAC compatibility on games, raising the usability of their OS and mitigating one of the things holding it back. Hell, even if its a crazy rumor its still a win-win-win. Only question is if EA will sell.
 
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While this could seriously effect the quality of EA games (positively). Could this also mean our favorite PC titles on MAC exclusively?

Only if they don't like making money, considering the current marketshare.
 
Full circle, I believe.

EA was formed by Trip Hawkins, who was in marketing in Apple, and wanted apple to do gaming, but Jobs was not interested.
 
Just because a company is looking at another company doesn't mean anything is going to happen. I love how everyone is running around with these theories. If Apple and EA start talking, then we can worry. Until then its all idle speculation, nothing to be taken too seriously.

That being said:

iMadden
iFIFA
iBattlefield 3

New names for games if Apple buys EA.
 
I can see it now... Redneck Ramage 5 coming out in an artsy, arrogantly minimalistic casing that says "I'm too good for you, that's why I cost double."

But I love my iPhone :-P

Love my iPod Touch. Agree with you on the rest though.
 
Not a chance in hell of that ever happening. Sounds like more of a wishful thinking type deal for bitter mac owners who've been spurned all those years prior to the macs going intel based and giving them ability to game on windows.

You guys always got blizzard games, really, what more could you ask for?
 
This is like that scene in the Devil's Advocate when Keanu almost had sex with his sister which would have spawned the Antichrist, only this time I can't tell which one is more evil.
 
Nothing but rumor. And thinking it would help, is a bit silly. What would happen, is we would pay twice the amount, as apple like to gouge its customers.
 
Could be a move to bring gamers to macs, theres no reason why a lot of games couldn't be written in opengl and then be easily portable between macs/linux and windows.

I approve of keeping opengl alive as an alternative to directx, back in the day of games like UT99 you could run the game in either mode, that died away over time. Competition is always good especially with microsoft who have a monopoly on gaming right now.

Mac hardware is way overpriced and I dont like the OS at all, so I certainly will never migrate my gaming rigs to macs, I think their philosophy of simplicity at the expense of control, and style over power is incredibly lame. But it's still a good thing if they move towards gaming.
 
This would be bad... for EA. Apple doesn't understand gaming AT ALL, and if they buy EA, they will destroy it... much to the delight of the EA haters.
 
This would be bad... for EA. Apple doesn't understand gaming AT ALL, and if they buy EA, they will destroy it... much to the delight of the EA haters.

EA is already pretty screwed up. Maybe some new management wouldn't hurt things.

EDIT: If Apple buys EA... I predict the killing of EA downloader/EA games on steam and all of EA titles will be on iTunes.
 
EA is already pretty screwed up. Maybe some new management wouldn't hurt things.

EDIT: If Apple buys EA... I predict the killing of EA downloader/EA games on steam and all of EA titles will be on iTunes.

Yeah they screwed up. I mean its not like they've spent the last two years trying to fix their image and their business practices. Of course no one ever notices that. They still think its the same EA as before.
 
This is interesting since there's also rumors that Apple plans to make their own console. If they do plan on making their own console, EA might be a good buy. Anyone who's a sports or Sims fan would be forced to buy an Apple console for many of their games.
 
I don't believe it one bit. It's not within Apple's business model, and if they had their sights on gaming, the way to do it is kicking off a gaming division and exploring some releases of their own to test the waters of the market and how the games could integrate into the Apple branding.

It wouldn't be enough to just make some good games under an Apple logo, it would have to contribute to the overall franchise. They can't afford to water down the Apple branding by releasing a merely average product. The Apple brand is what differentiates them and allows them to mark up prices so much more than the generic competition. The only way to make sure they do it right is to work through the process completely and thoroughly, not throwing money at an existing company that's already become famous for short-sightedness and poor quality (with the exception of some of the existing studios that EA absorbed).
 
This is interesting since there's also rumors that Apple plans to make their own console. If they do plan on making their own console, EA might be a good buy. Anyone who's a sports or Sims fan would be forced to buy an Apple console for many of their games.
That's probably why they are looking. Wonder if all EA games will now be MAC or iConsole exclusive :D Pretty good reason to "buy a mac".
 
This is interesting since there's also rumors that Apple plans to make their own console. If they do plan on making their own console, EA might be a good buy. Anyone who's a sports or Sims fan would be forced to buy an Apple console for many of their games.

There have been rumors of a second Apple console since the Pipin failed, miserably. The console market is of no interest to Apple. Their normal business model wouldn't work for consoles.
 
There have been rumors of a second Apple console since the Pipin failed, miserably. The console market is of no interest to Apple. Their normal business model wouldn't work for consoles.

lol with a name like pipin, how could it possibly fail?
 
Why the hell would they do that? Damn that's digging dude.

Because its Apple. If they did in fact buy EA, I could see them gearing towards Mac games and leaving PC in the dust. Even so.. this wont ever happen.
 
Apple's goal is to make money, Mac exclusive game releases will not happen.
 
I've worked at EA before and the culture inside with the employees is predominantly hardcore PC. If shareholders are what matters in a deal like this, apple would have to offer a price per share far above what EA is selling at right now, and considerably higher then what it was at over a year ago. For apple to take such a massive jump into the gaming world with no real gaming user base would probably send EA shares skyrocketing at the expense of apple shares plummeting. EA is already losing tonnes of money to porting to different machines also....they frequently complain to microsoft and sony to make their game systems cross compat
 
Apple's goal is to make money, Mac exclusive game releases will not happen.

Have you not seen the nazi-like behavior of Apple's app store regarding competition of apps similar to their own? I could totally see it happening.
 
I was screamin back when AMD was in trouble (still is I suppose) and split that Apple should have purchased them. Then Apple would get a means of making their own procs/hardware (as it is, Foxconn makes their stuff like iPhones). They would lose the x86, but they are apple after all, so they could develop the PowerPC architecture to kill x86. AMD/ATI would gain a new (better) OS, and since Macs are graphical by nature, making games for THEM would seem to make more sense than for PC... duh! Seemed like a win-win to me... dump Windows and competition with intel all together and merge. Intel would become a monopoly on x86 CPU's then, so they would be prevented from following AMD into making PowerPC chips unless they gave up x86. Im sure game titles would be attracted to the graphical based language more than with PC, and with such a power-trio including ATI, Im sure many like EA would start making more Apple games (as it is, PC games seem to be dying as more and more console ports anyways).

Or, I suppose Apple could just buy EA... lol. That would do it too!
 
I wonder if people are ready to buy $150 games on a $1000 console, in a pretty white shell?
 
Yeah they screwed up. I mean its not like they've spent the last two years trying to fix their image and their business practices. Of course no one ever notices that. They still think its the same EA as before.

two years? aren't they the ones who pioneered the limited activation/installation trend for pc games. that about qualifies as the most retarded thing that's happened to pc gaming in quite some time. courtesy of ea, 2008. yep, they sure are trying to fix their image.
 
Yeah right. Apple may be loaded with cash, but not that much cash.

You're right, they don't have $25 billion in cash. They have $29 billion in cash.

Sitting on all that cash at a time like this is making for lots of rumors, because with that much cash they could buy, well, just about anything except GM's debt. Latest one is that Apple might buy Twitter, which actually makes sense.
 
If they do buy EA. It only means one thing. Apple wants to take a shot at Microsofts dominance in the OS arena. Plus they want a shot at the console one as well.
 
Taking a quick look, AAPL has 25 bil in CASH right now.

ERTS has a market cap of 6.85 bil. So yeah, its easily possible.

AAPL has a market cap of 117 bil. Its vastly bigger than ERTS.

Imagine the synergy between Apple's iStore and the library of EA games. Apple could even come out with a gaming computer (or netbook, handheld, etc) to take advantage and drive sales. Plus they could add MAC compatibility on games, raising the usability of their OS and mitigating one of the things holding it back. Hell, even if its a crazy rumor its still a win-win-win. Only question is if EA will sell.
Can we say anti-trust violation?

Under the Antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful “intent to monopolize”; if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “unfair competition” or “restraint of trade”; and if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for “collusion” or “conspiracy.”
---Ayn Rand

Apple and Google may already be under investigation by the US. France is already beating them up over their iTunes-iPod product. Such a thing could put even more pressure on Apple.

The Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether the overlap of directors on the boards of Apple Inc. and Google Inc. violates antitrust laws, according to people familiar with the situation.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124149161449086315.html
 
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