Apple should do this. EA is huge with fantastic IPs.
That would provide Apple with tremendous leverage in the gaming scene and plug the only hole Macs have. 0
Mass Effect F1 Dragon Age Fifa Need for Speed Titanfall Battlefield Command and Conquer Dead Space Numerous Star Wars games
Etc etc etc
its a treasure trove.
The Bungie acquisition gave Microsoft the must-have it needed back when.
This would do that for Apple.
Apple Arcade is crap. Sorry. It’s a joke. It’s the same as not even trying. Just a way to get recurring payments from people who don’t buy games much. In the beginning, it was a way to focus on higher quality mobile games. But now it’s just a subscription tier for the same old crap.
Apple has the ecosystem, hardware, software, APIs, and trusted brand to dominate the gaming industry.
Focus on M2 Pro based “Apple Arcade” console (or have a new Apple TV+Arcade higher tier device), Mac and iOS and then port the games to third party console and pc a few months later. Create movies and tv series with these IPs and feature them on Apple TV+. It’s a business that wouldn’t be denied. So much potential here.
I don't know if I could say that Apple has a ecosystem when they don't even have a controller.
Also, I don't think the M2 would do something in the gaming market. The switch is evidence that you don't need the most powerful device to win in the gaming market. If Apple decide to enter the gaming market, will it compete with Nintendo or MS / Sony?
And here is another issue, upgradability. Will Apple allow gamers to upgrade their devices? One of the things PC gamers value is upgradability, and Apple is terrible at this.
My point is that acquiring / merging with EA would be one of many things Apple need to do enter the gaming market.
Of course they don’t have a controller. They don’t need one with crap like Apple Arcade. That would change in a hurry if they got serious.
The m2 is all in one - perfect for a console. It’s even a step ahead of what AMD is doing in ps5 and Xbox series x.
The switch is poof that you don’t need powerful hardware - for subpar game graphics - so is the iPhone.
The big games that sell like crazy have outstanding graphics for their time - VIDEO games.
Newish Macs and iPads playing these makes sense. And a dedicated console doesn’t get upgraded until it’s 8-10 years old. Then the new one comes out. That’s literally the standard. And it fits perfectly with apples m series strategy.
It’s actually much more simple than you want to believe.
Some people here are overly focused on the narrow context of PC vs. Mac gaming. That war is over.
In fact, the industry is already looking beyond mobile games operating locally on the device.
Let's imagine one day that someone could download a cloud gaming app (for fun, let's pretend that it's called GeForce NOW) onto a smart TV or their smartphone, pair a gamepad via Bluetooth, and play some of the most popular videogames on a 60"+ OLED display. When do you think that moment would come? Next year? Ten years from now? Last year?
It's not about acquiring PC game IP and porting them to macOS.p
And let's not forget that more people play videogames on consoles than computers. A hybrid portable/console called Nintendo Switch has sold over 110 million units. The console gaming industry has dwarfed the PC gaming industry for over three decades. How many people were playing videogames on PCs in 1993 versus Super NES?
For a while I thought that videogame consoles might make a brief interim appearance as plug-in devices like a Roku Streaming Stick. Now I'm not even sure of that. At some point, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo may just end up being apps on your phone.
Negative. The point of console is twofold;
1) huge ROI on investment. Spend a few hundred on hardware and milk it endlessly for the next decade.
2) stationary development target. That’s why console game look so great and play better than on pc - you don’t have to keep upgrading the thing to play the latest hit. It’s already optimized.
As long as their are games, there will be consoles.
Also, the cloud game streaming thing is nice as an extra. But it’s an old concept predating personal computers where you did not have any control or ownership. You just had a terminal which dialed into a mainframe. That’s essentially cloud computing today. It has inherent issues (ranging from tech, to privacy, to security, to ownership) that will never completely go away. So it’s nice to have, but will never replace local processing and storage, nor should it.
The main reason Apple would have rejected EA is that less than 20% of EA's game catalog runs on Macs or iOS. Why would Apple want games that are almost entirely made for Windows, Xbox, Nintendo, Playstation and Android?
Market cap of EA is $36B. So they were probably asking $50B.
How quickly we forget that Bungie's Halo was demoed at MacWorld Expo in 1999 as the game that will pull gamers into the Mac before MS bought the entire company for $30M after Jobs turned them down. Note they went to Apple first to get bought.
Then a lot of work had to go into making Halo work on the Xbox that would launch 2 years later. How much as the Halo franchise taken in? It's almost as if reworking a great game concept for their platform was financially viable for them.
Halo was never a Mac exclusive, and the Xbox was not massively different architecturally from a Windows PC. It used DirectX!
More pertinently Microsoft are estimated to have paid $20-40m for Bungie. That's million. A completely different scale from what EA would cost, chump change for Microsoft
Obviously Apple wouldn't have been interested in EA.
Yep.
From my recollection, Bungie wasn’t trying to sell itself. In an interview with a gaming magazine, the CEO answered why they decided at close to the last minute to sell their company and the exclusive rights to Halo to Microsoft. The answer was they offered a boatload of money. Bungie was a Mac first game company before Myth II was released.
The other thing a lot of people don’t know is Halo was designed to be a multiplayer game at the beginning, and had references to one of their most popular Mac games, Marathon.
Ah marathon. I downloaded it to see what that was about a few years ago. It was too old to get into but you could see the potential - I believe Destiny 2 is the fulfillment of that potential.
They need to do something big in gaming, even if it’s not this.
Buying, or investing in, Aspyr for the purpose of improving Aspyr’s ability to port more games, more quickly, with better quality would be fantastic.
Aspyr’s work has benefits to the entire Apple ecosystem. But by itself, Aspyr doesn’t realize those benefits. If Aspyr were owned by apple, it would make more economic sense to bring more games to the Mac
The main reason Apple would have rejected EA is that less than 20% of EA's game catalog runs on Macs or iOS. Why would Apple want games that are almost entirely made for Windows, Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation and Android?
Market cap of EA is $36B. So they were probably asking $50B.
Because the future. Why do people have a hard time seeing the possibilities of the future?
This only makes it a better deal. This would mean Apple could port the 80% of games that aren’t on Mac and cause a snowball effect.
If EA was a Mac exclusive developer, what would Apple gain?
I’m not suggesting it would be a good acquisition, just saying this is a good reason.
I don't think Apple would make EA an exclusive developer / publisher. Even companies like MS and Sony had to kept their latest (future) acquisitions multiplatform (CoD / Destiny). Even Apple had to open Apple Music and ATV+ to other platforms so they could grow. I think they would do the same with EA.
I didn’t say they would. I was actually the first person to suggest non-exclusivity when game studios were first being purchased by console developers.
EA gets worst company in the world award often, sometimes twice in a row. They better offer a good deal.
With that said, it’s long overdue Apple acquire a game studio. Doesn’t even have to be a multi-billion dollar one. Acquire a small indie studio, Apple has the funds to develop all their ideas.
Apple barely delivered the Apple Watch 7. They haven’t delivered a car or VR headset. They can’t even get new screens made and remember that charging pad? Yeah, me neither. They can’t seem to keep talent either. If it is not an iterative iPhone, headphone or computer they haven’t done much of anything. As for software, by their own admission (via their response to an open letter on FCP to do better) they haven’t delivered much there either and Logic Pro is again just an iteration for the most part. Siri is still largely useless for me. My kids have me ask it questions just to get the most ridiculous answers much to their amusement. Don’t know anything about the EA CEO but if he is a creative type he would balance Cook’s lack of imagination and vision (but has delivers great shareholder returns) and maybe be able to get the company to actually deliver on new products.
“They haven’t done much of anything”
I love how people pretend Apple Watch and AirPods aren’t some of the biggest inventions in human history and didn’t just happen within the past 10 years.
Heres some world changing products I can randomly think of from the past 2 decades:
iPod iTunes Nintendo Wii Apple earbuds with mic iPhone iPad Siri Tesla Cars ApplePay Apple Watch AirPods
People expect Apple to create a world changing product every 2 years but that’s just not probable. I mean if you look at the last 2 decades it’s hard to string that many products referencing ALL tech companies COMBINED.
But buying EA, a software company that doesn’t build hardware will be a revolutionary product or revolutionary decision? Come on man….
I love how people pretend Apple Watch and AirPods aren’t some of the biggest inventions in human history and didn’t just happen within the past 10 years.
Heres some world changing products I can randomly think of from the past 2 decades:
iPod iTunes Nintendo Wii Apple earbuds with mic iPhone iPad Siri Tesla Cars ApplePay Apple Watch AirPods
People expect Apple to create a world changing product every 2 years but that’s just not probable. I mean if you look at the last 2 decades it’s hard to string that many products referencing ALL tech companies COMBINED.
But buying EA, a software company that doesn’t build hardware will be a revolutionary product or revolutionary decision? Come on man….
I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with you, mainly because I don't think half of your list is "world changing". I think its safe to say that the iPod was a revolution in the MP3 player market, but it was the iTunes store model that was truly market changing, resulting in standardizing market pricing and making purchasing music just as convenient as pirating. The iphone and ipad were true revolutions, I would throw the M1 chip in their as its a revolution in performance per watt and gives you desktop performance(in many metrics) in very efficient/portable devices. While I think its a stretch to say Applepay was world changing, it did helped popularize NFC based payments. However, this already existed and was much more widespread in Europe using cards with NFC built in. Siri has never lived up to the promise and has languished. Apple Watch is the best device in its category(though I would argue for Garmin if your really serious about exercise tracking), but even it had to shift to a health and fitness device from the original fashion device category. And airpods are top tier bluetooth headphones and very popular, but I don't think they are world changing, as brands like Sony and beats already existed in that market with basically the same feature set, other than the custom chips for pairing with iphones. I also think the Wii was an absolute dead end and the Switch would go on my list as more revolutionary, but all this is just my personal opinion.
Sorry, long winded response, but I do agree that apple gains very little from EA. Any creativity that EA used to have is gone, they are more likely to put out iterative, loot box containing sequels instead of anything exciting and new. They have blundered multiple online game launches, had to strip out pay to win features after fans revolted, and continue to make a big chunk of their revenue of the Fifa ultimate league, which is pay to win. So no, I don't see much good in buying EA. Also, someone else mentioned EA's proprietary Frostbite engine, but I have always heard that it presents a ton of development headaches and has been forced onto the various development teams. I think Unreal Engine 5 is leaps and bounds ahead of other engines, and we will see less and less proprietary engines.
What Apple should really do is release a cross-platform 3d engine that rivals UE5 that runs on all platforms including Mac and iOS and give it away for free. They would get a huge uptake on getting games on Mac then from 3rd parties as young kids of the next game programmer generation would download the free software to learn it. They would then want the studios they work for to adopt it or start their own studios. It would reach the entire industry as well without the expensive licensing costs.
If true, EA was asking way too much which would explain why they are still an independent company despite courting multiple suitors.
Apple can afford to pay what you think is too much. You have to look at the future, not the present. This would give Apple the biggest game company, and would immediately insure that those games would run as well as possible across all of Apple’s systems, something that’s not even in the wind now. I’ve known many people over the decades that bought a PC rather than a Mac ONLY because of the gaming.
apple could take some of that $90 billion they’re using this quarter alone to buy stock back to add to a purchase. They’re throwing that money away now. You think that’s better? Adding EA would raise the share price vastly more than any imaginary rise it gets from share buybacks.
They need to do something big in gaming, even if it’s not this.
Buying, or investing in, Aspyr for the purpose of improving Aspyr’s ability to port more games, more quickly, with better quality would be fantastic.
Aspyr’s work has benefits to the entire Apple ecosystem. But by itself, Aspyr doesn’t realize those benefits. If Aspyr were owned by apple, it would make more economic sense to bring more games to the Mac
Apple has always been a very introverted company. There have been many times when a purchase would have been an obvious benefit, but they ignored it.
Not really. A sprawling game publisher isn't really Apple's core business. I have friends working in the industry and EA isn't regarded very highly. Not really up to Apple's brand.
If true, EA was asking way too much which would explain why they are still an independent company despite courting multiple suitors.
Apple can afford to pay what you think is too much. You have to look at the future, not the present. This would give Apple the biggest game company, and would immediately insure that those games would run as well as possible across all of Apple’s systems, something that’s not even in the wind now. I’ve known many people over the decades that bought a PC rather than a Mac ONLY because of the gaming.
apple could take some of that $90 billion they’re using this quarter alone to buy stock back to add to a purchase. They’re throwing that money away now. You think that’s better? Adding EA would raise the share price vastly more than any imaginary rise it gets from share buybacks.
That is a good point, they are burning a lot of cash. Buying a big, profitable company that adds value to their platforms would be a smart move.
They need to be careful about which company when making such a big purchase though.
EA's 2021 revenue was $5.6b and they made $1.6b just from Fifa Ultimate Team. EA has now parted ways with Fifa after nearly 30 years of games:
Their operating costs are $3b. Payroll is probably around $1b/year for 11,000 people. Royalties for the sports franchises make up a lot of the $1.4b costs to make the games (this is why they split from Fifa).
Although EA is big profitable company, the majority of their revenue comes from a handful of titles/franchises: Fifa, The Sims, Apex Legends (this game made $2b in 3 years), Madden, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Star Wars.
The Sims is already available on Mac and iOS. Apex Legends is on iOS. Fifa won't be with EA any more and will likely see a revenue drop when they switch brand. The Battlefield franchise completely lost direction with the latest title. Anthem was no good and they haven't made a Mass Effect game for 5 years.
When a company is looking to sell rather than being sought for acquisition, that's a bit of a red flag.
It's also important to keep in mind the development timeframes of games. Big unique AAA titles (like Apex Legends, Mass Effect) take 3 years or more to make each. For EA to deliver yearly profits, they are churning out the same franchises:
Sims, Battlefield, Fifa, Madden, Sims, Battlefield, Fifa, Madden, year after year. These popular franchises are valuable but I doubt these handful of franchises are worth a $40-50b acquisition, to Apple especially.
There's valuable talent that made the games so they can be put onto new franchises.
There's another company Embracer Group that recently bought Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and more. They have 124 studios (12,500+ employees) and have a ~$9b market cap with ~$3b equity. Aspyr is in the list so they can cover game ports:
If a game studio purchase is just for some good franchises and talent, that would be a more cost-effective acquisition and would have a much more diverse portfolio of games. Tomb Raider alone could drive $0.5b/year in Apple Arcade subs.
If true, EA was asking way too much which would explain why they are still an independent company despite courting multiple suitors.
Apple can afford to pay what you think is too much. You have to look at the future, not the present. This would give Apple the biggest game company, and would immediately insure that those games would run as well as possible across all of Apple’s systems, something that’s not even in the wind now. I’ve known many people over the decades that bought a PC rather than a Mac ONLY because of the gaming.
apple could take some of that $90 billion they’re using this quarter alone to buy stock back to add to a purchase. They’re throwing that money away now. You think that’s better? Adding EA would raise the share price vastly more than any imaginary rise it gets from share buybacks.
That is a good point, they are burning a lot of cash. Buying a big, profitable company that adds value to their platforms would be a smart move.
They need to be careful about which company when making such a big purchase though.
EA's 2021 revenue was $5.6b and they made $1.6b just from Fifa Ultimate Team. EA has now parted ways with Fifa after nearly 30 years of games:
Their operating costs are $3b. Payroll is probably around $1b/year for 11,000 people. Royalties for the sports franchises make up a lot of the $1.4b costs to make the games (this is why they split from Fifa).
Although EA is big profitable company, the majority of their revenue comes from a handful of titles/franchises: Fifa, The Sims, Apex Legends (this game made $2b in 3 years), Madden, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Star Wars.
The Sims is already available on Mac and iOS. Apex Legends is on iOS. Fifa won't be with EA any more and will likely see a revenue drop when they switch brand. The Battlefield franchise completely lost direction with the latest title. Anthem was no good and they haven't made a Mass Effect game for 5 years.
When a company is looking to sell rather than being sought for acquisition, that's a bit of a red flag.
It's also important to keep in mind the development timeframes of games. Big unique AAA titles (like Apex Legends, Mass Effect) take 3 years or more to make each. For EA to deliver yearly profits, they are churning out the same franchises:
Sims, Battlefield, Fifa, Madden, Sims, Battlefield, Fifa, Madden, year after year. These popular franchises are valuable but I doubt these handful of franchises are worth a $40-50b acquisition, to Apple especially.
There's valuable talent that made the games so they can be put onto new franchises.
There's another company Embracer Group that recently bought Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and more. They have 124 studios (12,500+ employees) and have a ~$9b market cap with ~$3b equity. Aspyr is in the list so they can cover game ports:
If a game studio purchase is just for some good franchises and talent, that would be a more cost-effective acquisition and would have a much more diverse portfolio of games. Tomb Raider alone could drive $0.5b/year in Apple Arcade subs.
A new Mass Effect game is in development right now. Was announced a couple years back. That’s a major franchise and some truly great games. Eat can always get the FIFA license back if they want. But it does eat too much money. Soccer gamers will want soccer games regardless.
Regarding embraced group, I’m glad someone is finally going to go to town with those excellent franchises. Feud Ex in particular has been excellent but has been inexplicably dropped.
But Apex, the Star Wars licenses, madden, mass effect, battlefield, NFS, etc. are gigantic franchises. Pillars of the gaming community. It’s a worthwhile purchase.
Some people here are overly focused on the narrow context of PC vs. Mac gaming. That war is over.
In fact, the industry is already looking beyond mobile games operating locally on the device.
Let's imagine one day that someone could download a cloud gaming app (for fun, let's pretend that it's called GeForce NOW) onto a smart TV or their smartphone, pair a gamepad via Bluetooth, and play some of the most popular videogames on a 60"+ OLED display. When do you think that moment would come? Next year? Ten years from now? Last year?
It's not about acquiring PC game IP and porting them to macOS.p
And let's not forget that more people play videogames on consoles than computers. A hybrid portable/console called Nintendo Switch has sold over 110 million units. The console gaming industry has dwarfed the PC gaming industry for over three decades. How many people were playing videogames on PCs in 1993 versus Super NES?
For a while I thought that videogame consoles might make a brief interim appearance as plug-in devices like a Roku Streaming Stick. Now I'm not even sure of that. At some point, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo may just end up being apps on your phone.
Negative. The point of console is twofold;
1) huge ROI on investment. Spend a few hundred on hardware and milk it endlessly for the next decade.
2) stationary development target. That’s why console game look so great and play better than on pc - you don’t have to keep upgrading the thing to play the latest hit. It’s already optimized.
As long as their are games, there will be consoles.
Also, the cloud game streaming thing is nice as an extra. But it’s an old concept predating personal computers where you did not have any control or ownership. You just had a terminal which dialed into a mainframe. That’s essentially cloud computing today. It has inherent issues (ranging from tech, to privacy, to security, to ownership) that will never completely go away. So it’s nice to have, but will never replace local processing and storage, nor should it.
The last sentence of this post is so ridiculous.
Every move Microsoft and Sony are currently making is a sign of a post console world. GamePass vs PlayStation Now. Activision vs Bungie.
People like you laughed at the ridiculousness of Sega’s Meganet ever replacing local 1p vs 2p games. The technology just wasn’t there yet.
Same at the idea of not having physical copies of music. Or using a non dedicated music device to listen. Or giving up game cartridges and discs.
All of those things changed as generations and target demographics changed. Boomers and the older GenX’ers hated Napster. Said the iPhone would fail. Thought the internet was a fad.
It’s the same with game streaming. The reason you can not understand it is because you are an old man that can never imagine giving up your gaming rig. You are not who Sony and Microsoft sit up at night thinking about. You too will age out.
I love how people pretend Apple Watch and AirPods aren’t some of the biggest inventions in human history and didn’t just happen within the past 10 years.
Heres some world changing products I can randomly think of from the past 2 decades:
iPod iTunes Nintendo Wii Apple earbuds with mic iPhone iPad Siri Tesla Cars ApplePay Apple Watch AirPods
People expect Apple to create a world changing product every 2 years but that’s just not probable. I mean if you look at the last 2 decades it’s hard to string that many products referencing ALL tech companies COMBINED.
But buying EA, a software company that doesn’t build hardware will be a revolutionary product or revolutionary decision? Come on man….
I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with you, mainly because I don't think half of your list is "world changing". I think its safe to say that the iPod was a revolution in the MP3 player market, but it was the iTunes store model that was truly market changing, resulting in standardizing market pricing and making purchasing music just as convenient as pirating. The iphone and ipad were true revolutions, I would throw the M1 chip in their as its a revolution in performance per watt and gives you desktop performance(in many metrics) in very efficient/portable devices. While I think its a stretch to say Applepay was world changing, it did helped popularize NFC based payments. However, this already existed and was much more widespread in Europe using cards with NFC built in. Siri has never lived up to the promise and has languished. Apple Watch is the best device in its category(though I would argue for Garmin if your really serious about exercise tracking), but even it had to shift to a health and fitness device from the original fashion device category. And airpods are top tier bluetooth headphones and very popular, but I don't think they are world changing, as brands like Sony and beats already existed in that market with basically the same feature set, other than the custom chips for pairing with iphones. I also think the Wii was an absolute dead end and the Switch would go on my list as more revolutionary, but all this is just my personal opinion.
Sorry, long winded response, but I do agree that apple gains very little from EA. Any creativity that EA used to have is gone, they are more likely to put out iterative, loot box containing sequels instead of anything exciting and new. They have blundered multiple online game launches, had to strip out pay to win features after fans revolted, and continue to make a big chunk of their revenue of the Fifa ultimate league, which is pay to win. So no, I don't see much good in buying EA. Also, someone else mentioned EA's proprietary Frostbite engine, but I have always heard that it presents a ton of development headaches and has been forced onto the various development teams. I think Unreal Engine 5 is leaps and bounds ahead of other engines, and we will see less and less proprietary engines.
I mean “world changing” in a literal sense. We can always move the goalposts to “well cell phones existed before iPhone and MP3s existed before iPod” but the world actually CHANGED with these products. For example: everyone was either buying and burning CDs or downloading music onto their desktop to listen to music on their crappy PC speakers in a dark bedroom. When iPod released everyone started buying from iTunes and going mobile from morning walks to plugging it into the car. Before ApplePay, everyone was swiping. You get the picture.
The switch is nice but the Wii broke the barrier between non-gamers and gamers. Remember people buying them for retirement homes and the elderly gettin excited like children for “bowling night”? Nintendo screwed up by releasing Switch Sports so late and with so little.
This is why the M-series doesn’t fit the description. Unless it changes the way people use computers.
To suggest Apple hasn’t done anything lately but suggest acquiring EA would be some world changing event is ridiculous.
When Epic attacked Apple I suggested Apple develop their own engine to take Epic out of the market or at least take a huge chunk of market share. Apple has the talent and resources but not the will.
But Apex, the Star Wars licenses, madden, mass effect, battlefield, NFS, etc. are gigantic franchises. Pillars of the gaming community. It’s a worthwhile purchase.
EA & DICE completely shat the bed with Battlefield 2042. They'll be lucky if a single person pre-orders the next installment.
If true, EA was asking way too much which would explain why they are still an independent company despite courting multiple suitors.
Apple can afford to pay what you think is too much. You have to look at the future, not the present. This would give Apple the biggest game company, and would immediately insure that those games would run as well as possible across all of Apple’s systems, something that’s not even in the wind now. I’ve known many people over the decades that bought a PC rather than a Mac ONLY because of the gaming.
apple could take some of that $90 billion they’re using this quarter alone to buy stock back to add to a purchase. They’re throwing that money away now. You think that’s better? Adding EA would raise the share price vastly more than any imaginary rise it gets from share buybacks.
This is a great point. They don’t have to make the games “exclusive” but just port them over. This would cause a snowball effect. If the effect is a bump of 10% PC market share than the purchase alone would be worth the price.
What Apple should really do is release a cross-platform 3d engine that rivals UE5 that runs on all platforms including Mac and iOS and give it away for free. They would get a huge uptake on getting games on Mac then from 3rd parties as young kids of the next game programmer generation would download the free software to learn it. They would then want the studios they work for to adopt it or start their own studios. It would reach the entire industry as well without the expensive licensing costs.
I suggested this back when Epic decided to attack Apple.
Apple has the resources and talent. M1, Swift, Metal, Arcade, iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Apple TV, Watch but Apple doesn’t care.
Any game studio would kill to have just ONE of those IPs. Apple has NINE. Imagine if Apple gets it’s own headset and OS?
Apple doesn’t need EA, a company that’s taking a nose dive, build from within Apple….
Would you say that about all acquisitions? People still say that about Beats and yet the value from that sale are very clear. If Apple could create good games from within you have to wonder why they haven't already.
Comments
1) huge ROI on investment. Spend a few hundred on hardware and milk it endlessly for the next decade.
Buying, or investing in, Aspyr for the purpose of improving Aspyr’s ability to port more games, more quickly, with better quality would be fantastic.
Aspyr’s work has benefits to the entire Apple ecosystem. But by itself, Aspyr doesn’t realize those benefits. If Aspyr were owned by apple, it would make more economic sense to bring more games to the Mac
Heres some world changing products I can randomly think of from the past 2 decades:
iPod
iTunes
Nintendo Wii
Apple earbuds with mic
iPhone
iPad
Siri
Tesla Cars
ApplePay
Apple Watch
AirPods
People expect Apple to create a world changing product every 2 years but that’s just not probable. I mean if you look at the last 2 decades it’s hard to string that many products referencing ALL tech companies COMBINED.
But buying EA, a software company that doesn’t build hardware will be a revolutionary product or revolutionary decision? Come on man….
Sorry, long winded response, but I do agree that apple gains very little from EA. Any creativity that EA used to have is gone, they are more likely to put out iterative, loot box containing sequels instead of anything exciting and new. They have blundered multiple online game launches, had to strip out pay to win features after fans revolted, and continue to make a big chunk of their revenue of the Fifa ultimate league, which is pay to win. So no, I don't see much good in buying EA. Also, someone else mentioned EA's proprietary Frostbite engine, but I have always heard that it presents a ton of development headaches and has been forced onto the various development teams. I think Unreal Engine 5 is leaps and bounds ahead of other engines, and we will see less and less proprietary engines.
apple could take some of that $90 billion they’re using this quarter alone to buy stock back to add to a purchase. They’re throwing that money away now. You think that’s better? Adding EA would raise the share price vastly more than any imaginary rise it gets from share buybacks.
They need to be careful about which company when making such a big purchase though.
EA's 2021 revenue was $5.6b and they made $1.6b just from Fifa Ultimate Team. EA has now parted ways with Fifa after nearly 30 years of games:
https://www.sportspromedia.com/analysis/fifa-ea-sports-fc-split-video-games-explainer/
Their operating costs are $3b. Payroll is probably around $1b/year for 11,000 people. Royalties for the sports franchises make up a lot of the $1.4b costs to make the games (this is why they split from Fifa).
Although EA is big profitable company, the majority of their revenue comes from a handful of titles/franchises: Fifa, The Sims, Apex Legends (this game made $2b in 3 years), Madden, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Star Wars.
The Sims is already available on Mac and iOS. Apex Legends is on iOS. Fifa won't be with EA any more and will likely see a revenue drop when they switch brand. The Battlefield franchise completely lost direction with the latest title. Anthem was no good and they haven't made a Mass Effect game for 5 years.
When a company is looking to sell rather than being sought for acquisition, that's a bit of a red flag.
It's also important to keep in mind the development timeframes of games. Big unique AAA titles (like Apex Legends, Mass Effect) take 3 years or more to make each. For EA to deliver yearly profits, they are churning out the same franchises:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Electronic_Arts_games:_2010%E2%80%93present
Sims, Battlefield, Fifa, Madden, Sims, Battlefield, Fifa, Madden, year after year. These popular franchises are valuable but I doubt these handful of franchises are worth a $40-50b acquisition, to Apple especially.
There's valuable talent that made the games so they can be put onto new franchises.
There's another company Embracer Group that recently bought Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and more. They have 124 studios (12,500+ employees) and have a ~$9b market cap with ~$3b equity. Aspyr is in the list so they can cover game ports:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embracer_Group
If a game studio purchase is just for some good franchises and talent, that would be a more cost-effective acquisition and would have a much more diverse portfolio of games. Tomb Raider alone could drive $0.5b/year in Apple Arcade subs.
For example: everyone was either buying and burning CDs or downloading music onto their desktop to listen to music on their crappy PC speakers in a dark bedroom. When iPod released everyone started buying from iTunes and going mobile from morning walks to plugging it into the car. Before ApplePay, everyone was swiping. You get the picture.
The switch is nice but the Wii broke the barrier between non-gamers and gamers. Remember people buying them for retirement homes and the elderly gettin excited like children for “bowling night”? Nintendo screwed up by releasing Switch Sports so late and with so little.
This is why the M-series doesn’t fit the description. Unless it changes the way people use computers.
To suggest Apple hasn’t done anything lately but suggest acquiring EA would be some world changing event is ridiculous.
When Epic attacked Apple I suggested Apple develop their own engine to take Epic out of the market or at least take a huge chunk of market share. Apple has the talent and resources but not the will.
but just port them over. This would cause a snowball effect. If the effect is a bump of 10% PC market share than the purchase alone would be worth the price.
I suggested this back when Epic decided to attack Apple.
Apple has the resources and talent. M1, Swift, Metal, Arcade, iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Apple TV, Watch but Apple doesn’t care.
Any game studio would kill to have just ONE of those IPs. Apple has NINE. Imagine if Apple gets it’s own headset and OS?
Billions left on the table.