With EA Market cap dropping to $30 Billion, do you think Microsoft could by EA?

With EA's market cap at 30 Billion as of today, it got me wondering if Microsoft sees an opportunity here to buy EA at a cheaper price. $50 billion was and still is expensive for a company to buy, now with EA at a cheaper price, MS could buy for $35 - $40 Billion.

Microsoft could just leave EA be independent and away from MS itself, EA would still release multiplatform, however the only exclusive will be on Game Pass, XCloud and the MS Store. Which means that while XB owners will have the benefit of playing games at a cheap subscription, PS4 owners unfortunately will not that luxury.

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I heard a rumor on the back alley that MS is planning on buying Zelda and GTA to make them part of the Halo battle royale skins.

@zappat: ??

Yup, that's how mergers and acquisitions work. Exactly like that.

Business 101 says no.

It would not be beneficial for EITHER console maker to buy a big publisher unless they still plan on making games for every platform.

Buying to make content exclusive is basically buying a company and cutting off a major revenue stream.

It would be more beneficial to buy an individual IP or studio from EA, but buying EA as a whole would be essentially flushing money down the toilet.

30B? Oh wow I can practically buy them myself.

I disagree, EA would still be left alone and be able to put games on PS4. However they likely will keep games exclusive on Game Pass and XCloud. Xbox owners will get the benefit of making via Game Pass, whereas PS4 owners will need to pay $60 upfront.

With EA's biggest IP being a licenced property, A MS acquisition wouldn't really make any sense as it would still have to be multiplatform.

@boycie: Yes because in the real world money that comes from exclusives is much more valuable than money coming from multiplatforms.

Buying EA is simply dumb and these threads need to stop.

I'd be more surprise if it comes with Star Wars license for MS lol.

Nah, the new studios they bought and created recently is plenty of ammo to wipeout the competition as it is. No need for overkill. lol :P

That doesnt make any sense.

You are saying that MS would spend 30 or 40 billion just to put EA games on gamepass?

It would be FAR, FAR cheaper just to pay licence fees for the newer games to be on there.

Your example would be like Netflix buying Sony Pictures and Disney just to get the movies on Netflix.

This is why licensing and profit sharing exists.

Lol. No, they aren't going to do that

I'm sure I have a spare 30 lying around here somewhere.

And I thought BabyJoker was bad with the buyout talk.

Lol why would EA let MS “BY” them out when Xbox has the lowest user numbers (by 40mil under Sony) that’s pretty stupid business on EA part.

would EA have a choice in the matter or is that not how purchases work in this universe?

I heard Microsoft is buying the USA to replace Trump with Bill Gates.

This makes me curious that Microsoft may try to sign an exclusivity deal with Disney for Star Wars.(Since they know Star Wars exclusive games on their system can give them a boost like in PS2/GC/Xbox era)

Why on earth would MS want to buy EA?

Other than seizing control of Orgin.

What possible benefit would they get from that, other than shitty Star Wars games, shitty Battlefield games, and shitty madden games?

Yeah with the way EA has treated the SW franchise I'd say they have a chance.

Then they could get Obsidian to make another KotOR?

Back on Xbox, KOTOR was a console exclusive to Xbox, it did however gave MS a boost cause KOTOR won an award for the best Star Wars game, it was known famous on Xbox despite the system was new to the gaming world and Bioware had good relationship with MS at the time. Instead of buying EA, MS could try to buy Star Wars License right out from EA is what I like to see.

I think you misunderstood his argument. Licensees would not be on board with having their franchises exclusive to a single platform. It's such a laughable assertion that it would probably never even go to any kind of litigation because the licensees could simply prove the loss in sales on other platforms as a tangible damage.

Lol, wtf. First off, EA as a company is worth too much. Even if M$ is rich, there is no logical way they could buy EA.

Second, your title is misleading. EA hasn't dropped in market, in fact I'm not sure why you're talking about market cap. A more accurate representation would be their yearly revenues, hint - EA has been growing since 2012 non-stop and now revenues exceeded in 2017 $5.5 billion (their highest yet), with 2018 expected to climb.

stay in school kids

@Shewgenja: If something like this happened why would MS want to keep something like FIFA as an exclusive? What would they have to gain from shrinking the costumer base? It's not like Minecraft isn't a thing. So I don't know why buying EA has anything to do with them being forced to turn ips exclusives. And why not being an exclusive is a problem.

Not going to happen, EA will go bust before MS buys them, even if that happened (which it's not) MS would circle with the sharks, just picking the I.P's they wanted from the car boot sale.

It would be a lot of exposure for MS to the licensees still. Everything from content exclusivity to performance per platform would have to be arbitrated with the licensees because the parent company would not be impartial. I think the "MS will buy EA" fever dream is more of a nightmare for everyone involved, strictly as a matter of business. It would be a bigger drain on innovation from those titles than what we are already seeing.