There is indication that Apple is getting serious about the gaming market now. Apparently, the iPhone Touch may be getting revived as gaming handheld, and Apple may also be investing in its own cloud gaming service. So far, so good as these things go. But an analyst from J.P. Morgan has made a suggestion now that sounds, well, a little out there.
Speaking in response to declining sales of the iPhone last quarter, J.P. Morgan analyst Samik Chatterjee said on Monday that Apple needs to start investing in exclusive services and content to drive interest in its hardware. The other services that were recommended for an Apple acquisition were Sonos and Netflix (I don’t even want to talk about those in passing), but in terms of gaming, a recommendation was made to purchase Activision Blizzard, according to CNBC.
While Activision-Blizzard own King, the makers of Candy Crush, and therefore have a mobile game hit (not counting Hearthstone, which also does well on smartphones, and the upcoming Diablo Immortal, which is bound to do well in spite of the backlash it attracted), I don’t know if Apple should be spending the kind of money necessary to buy the biggest third party publisher on the market. At that point, it might be best to just invest in your own in-house gaming talent, should Apple even be inclined towards that.