One of the big pieces of news that broke out this week was the rumor that Microsoft may be looking into buying EA- given EA is one of the biggest third party publishers on the market, Microsoft owning their catalog would give them a major boost.
However, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter apparently didn’t agree with that assessment- speaking to Forbes earlier this week, he had pointed out that the acquisition simply doesn’t make much sense for EA- which it doesn’t. But what about for Microsoft, who are trying to bolster their catalog? Wouldn’t it make more sense for them?
We asked this to Mr. Pachter as a follow up, as well as the question of how Microsoft would handle EA once they got them under their wing- would they make their games exclusive, or, much like with Minecraft, would they keep putting them on other platforms to maximize revenue?
“The acquisition doesn’t make sense,” Pachter reiterated. “If they pay full value and limit sales to the Xbox platform, they won’t get a return on the investment. If they pay up and put games on all platforms, there is no strategic benefit in owning EA. The reason to buy content is to make it exclusive, and not to buy for the sake of owning more content that is on competitor platforms.”
Which is fair- it’s hard to argue with that line of reasoning. You have to wonder why Microsoft would be looking to buy into EA, then- unless they really do intend to retain EA’s multiplatform publishing after all.
