apple: EA seeks potential buyer, Apple and Amazon in talks – Times of India

Electronic Arts or EA is actively looking for a potential new buyer or merger that will help to widen its resources. The studio behind popular games like The Sims, Battlefield and FIFA wants to get acquired to unlock its full potential, reports PhoneArena. Recently, multiple tech giants have acquired gaming studios. In January, Microsoft announced that it had reached a deal to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. A few weeks later, Sony followed the suit with a deal to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion.
EA merger deal with NBC Universal that failed
The report also reveals that EA CEO Andrew Wilson was approached by NBC Universal shortly after the Microsoft-Activision deal was announced. The idea behind this deal was to merge both the companies, with Wilson as CEO of the combined entity.
The report claims that both the gaming and the media giants negotiated the terms of such a deal over several weeks. However, the proposal fell apart within the last month or so as discussions were advanced.
EA seeking other buyers/merger deals
The failure of the NBC deal hasn’t discouraged EA rom looking for a new merger or buyer. Instead, the company has become more determined to reach a deal after Microsoft agreed to buy Activision Blizzard, the report suggests.
EA has held talks with other tech giants like — Amazon, Disney and Apple among other potential suitors. The report didn’t make it clear how far these discussions have reached, however, such a deal is expected to interest all three companies.
How Apple, Amazon and Disney will benefit from acquiring EA?
As per the report, Apple will get access to a huge library of gaming IPs by acquiring Electronic Arts which could have multiple use cases. The company can use it — to boost Apple Arcade, develop its upcoming AR/VR headset as a gaming powerhouse and will also give the Apple TV+ streaming service more IP to play with.
In the case of Amazon, the situation will be quite similar as it has the Amazon Luna cloud gaming service and Prime Video streaming service. However, Disney is likely to focus on IP for its Disney+ streaming service.