First Activision, Now EA? FIFA Publisher Is Tipped For Takeover

Oh my... if they buy EA they will have to pay a little more for every other thing as DLC... LOL... EA can go, for all I care, since it doesn't support Nintendo, anyways

There's no competition anymore. Nowadays it's all about pay to win.

The only reason Xbox buying Activision was good was Activision's leadership being morally bankrupt. EA is no saint but I haven't heard of them being nightmare fuel. I can see Apple's VR ambitions making Frostbite tempting given Star Wars Squadrons, I could see Amazon given New World and Luna, I just don't want to see Xbox get even bigger. That's coming from an Xbox user. Google would be a disaster, and Netflix would probably sell EA later if I had to guess.

The day Microsoft buys EA, I'll be like "Oh no... Anyway..."

It's all wine and roses in the Xbox world, but come back to me in two years when Microsoft's investors start demanding returns on all these acquisitions and GamePass increases to $35 a month. Anyone who thinks Microsoft is going to continue to let people download triple-A game for pennies on the dollar is in serious denial.

RIP sony if MS buy out EA. On Nintendolands nobody cares.

Microsoft will buy the whole industry and forced us to rent our games. You will own nothing and be happy!

If they do buy ea... Then maybe their games will be forced to improve!

How much of EA's value is in its sports franchises and would FIFA, the NFL etc be happy if those games be exclusive to one platform/ecosystem? Take FIFA and Madden away from EA and they don't look anywhere near as attractive.

I genuinely have no faith in gaming outside of small companies and indies anymore so please keep buying these jerks out. I wanna see this industry in it’s awful current state burn to the ground

Something happened we weren't expecting, so let's now assume it will happen to all the other companies.

why does anyone on here give two flying fffffffffffffffffffffff is MS buys EA Activision what difference does it make to the switch. wait No fifa legacy edition omg my tears will not stop flowing or Activision no one third of a game on a cart heartbroken i am not.

i trough Nintendo would be the next target for Microsoft to buy.

@Anguspuss EA is probably the worst publisher to Nintendo, but if y'all can't understand how industry consolidation is bad for everyone I don't know what to tell you. Nintendo and indies are great but that didn't save the Wii U. If Nintendo's competitors own everything that is bad for Nintendo and consumers.

Much like how MLB forced Sony to release The Show on Xbox and Switch, FIFA would force whoever buys EA to release FIFA on all platforms. If EA do go the route of ditching the FIFA license I'd imagine sales would largely drop because the branding is gone (same reason why a Nintendo Kart would still be called Mario Kart).

@Anguspuss most of us have taste and play devices outside of the switch and also play non Nintendo games. that's why we're talking about this

This industry has been experiencing a lot of crazy lately.

If Phil buying EA and Activision means they won`t touch Sega, Capcom , or Square Enix then... yeah. Buy it. I could not care less if annual crap like COD or Fifa become Xbox exclusives, but SMT, Resident Evil or Final Fantasy would feel awful.

One thing that also gets overlooked: Microsoft is a nice overlord now, but management, philosophies and strategies change. When they, in a few years, get the idea to revive Kinect or come up with something similar... then all those studios that so proudly state how well Phil treats them today will be sent to the Kinect mines like Rare once was.

So yeah, please don´t buy Capcom, SE or Sega and please please don`t let them buy Toby Fox. That would be awful too.

Nintendo doesn’t care if EA gets bought. I don’t think anyone cares here if EA gets bought by MS

@Vincent294 look at the list dosent effect switch at all. add in fact EA Activision release hand full of games a year the same games every year wont effect nintendo. IF MS could but nintendo they would and for a lot more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_Switch_video_games

@Anguspuss don’t forget all these people worrying MS will kill crash and Spyro even though Activision already did that themselves lmfao

@whateverdude how do EA and Activision and “taste” go together lol

@CactusMan Not gonna waste more time on a Nintendo fanboy, but if you think that's all Sony makes...if you like Nintendo games, why don't you spend time playing them instead of acting like an angry teenager on Reddit?

microsoft should buy Sony

@Anguspuss That's not how monopolies work. They don't buy the publishers Nintendo fanboys hate and stop there. They buy everything. So yes, even if you don't these publishers, this is bad news. They can and will keep buying.

@whateverdude i have ps5 and xbox series sand gamepass and. Fact is Activation and EA own some great ips they have no intrestin as they cant addloot boxes were MS will probably use them and make games.

@Giancarlothomaz not going to happen dude especially since microsoft cant buy japanese game companies that are based in japan.

From EA, the only franchises that interest me are Need For Speed, Burnout, Sim City and The Sims (My sims).
however, and as we all know, EA has not done the right thing to make those franchises shine and worse, it leaves them forgotten if they don't work as they want (not to mention the disasters that are added to it like pay to win, loot boxes, forever online game, etc, etc), adding the annihilation of the developers who buy if they do not achieve their goal; therefore, whoever buys EA is buying a blank canvas stained with "sadness"

I guess this is bad for "the industry" in theory but honestly I just don't care. I don't see Nintendo hurting from this, PC games will be fine and indie devs will keep making games. The consumer base for non-big-dumb-console-game conglomerate is sustainable. If all the garbage got piled in one place it'll just sink worse. There would be no need to panic.

Because ea puts all the games on switch that would be terrible

@SakuraHaruka need for speed is the only one I like from EA and is actually not bad

@RiasGremory
I think he is making fun of Nintendo life’s many articles on this topic.

It's clear what Microsoft are doing and where they want to steer everyone. EA would be a fair bet.

@CactusMan Not really, if Microsoft bought EA, yes they will have own Battlefield, FIFA, and Madden. The issue is that once they became too huge, they will literally be competing against themselves. Battlefield will had to compete with Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty, Quake, Medal of Honor, Doom, Wolfenstein, Perfect Dark, Destiny, etc., in due time one or almost all of those franchise will fall under. Need for Speed and Burnout will go one on one with Forza. Microsoft's own IPs will be overshadow by the acquisition's IPs, it would be the beginning of the end for them.

nintendo needs to aquire platinum studios before microsoft get them.

@Vincent294 I don't see how this is bad news. Do you have an explanation?

@Specter_of-the_OLED Good point. It's already happening with Disney's acquisition of Fox. Some studios and franchises have been completely buried.

The problem is that EA’s biggest revenue sources are licensed properties (fifa and madden) so they could suffer a serious windfall at any time and these licensing deals over inflate their value in terms of IP. I think a buyout would be smaller than 38 billion as the article suggests.

@RiasGremory Even if they do acquired Platinum Games, that doesn't mean they'll get Bayonetta again as that IP is still own by Sega, they'll secured Astral Chain though but I don't see Platinum Games being a big win for Nintendo unless Nintendo had them create other projects for them. If Nintendo is like Microsoft, the big ten they need to acquired are Capcom, Sega Sammy, Bandai Namco, Konami Hudson, Level-5, Panic Button, Tecmo Koei, WayForward, Saber Interactive, and Square Enix. Maybe if they had some more extra spare cash they could also get Treasure, Platinum Games, Sting, Tri-Ace, Vanillaware, and Falcom. Maybe buy SNK from the Saudi Arabian prince too. Notice how almost all of them had two names while Capcom and Nintendo doesn't.

@BloodNinja Monopolies have more power, they can charge more money, make less games, lay people off, bury competition. 3rd parties ditched the Wii U and it suffered. The Switch got some games from Ubisoft, Bethesda, Capcom, Sega, and others, as well as Nintendo and indies. EA and Activision have done almost nothing, but the trend towards consolidation probably won't stop with them. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, certainly I won't miss Activision's leadership, but the more Xbox owns, the more likely it is they will charge me more. And the more likely they will then use that money to buy Capcom or someone who will hurt Nintendo's game selection.

@Handy_Man This is the best comment I've ever seen since I registered on this website.

@anoyonmus
well, really Need For Speed has never been a bad franchise, if it has had its details, such as NFS 2015 (and the permanent online) and NFS Payback (loot boxes), however, in my personal opinion, another great detail is the fact that NFS has never stayed in one "format", that is, we went from Simulator, to arcade street racing, to Hollywood style racing and originally it was more about cars and tracks (my favorite versions), but, well, with so much change of developers, the franchise has always suffered from that;, and I emphasize, this last one is my personal opinion.

@Vincent294 Oh, you're talking about monopolies. Yes, those are bad. I don't see this as a monopoly, though. There is plenty of competition in the games industry, and MS hasn't been strong in gaming since the Xbox 360.

The race to the meta verse! When I heard this phrase I checked my SNES mini was still working.It is! Gaming is solved! Phew panic over xxxx

The gaming industry is like a game to Microsoft, and its pay to win.

Seriously though courts would block another massive purchase so soon from Microsoft so maybe this is about Google or amazon

If someone bought up EA, the plague of this industry might finally be quashed

@Burning_Spear don't worry even at £35 per month the sheep will still say its worth it

@MarioBrickLayer those sports games would never become platform exclusives, EA has contracts signed about that so even after a takeover they need to abide them for as long they go.

Same with Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard had specific contracts with Sony for example.

@SakuraHaruka that’s the only franchise I like from EA.

It’s Need for speed

@Specter_of-the_OLED I do hope Nintendo makes some acquisitions eventually even though they might not.

Also I don’t think PG will be bought MS considering the you know Japanese laws but it’s also because I think that Astral Chain is owned by Nintendo now.

But I want Nintendo to make some acquisitions. Even Sony, they should probably do as well. I feel Capcom, Falcom, KT, Square Enix are perfect for either Nintendo or in Square’s case Sony.

Not only that but Nintendo buying PG makes way too much sense.

@Vincent294 Activision has done more on Switch than EA.

We got Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk, Spyro, Diablo, Overwatch on Switch. I think there might be more but I am not sure

If Microsoft also buys EA then there might be bad days ahead for Sony in the west. I mean: What sells most on Playstation in the west? Call of duty and Fifa!

@Rayquaza2510 I think the contracts will be a bit different, by the sounds of it there is some sort of contract which means some COD games have to go to Playstation, but that's not going to be every COD game forever, so they will go exclusive at some point if that is what Microsoft wants.

With FIFA for example, it's out of EA or a new owners hands. If FIFA says we want our game to be multi platform or you can't use our brand or trademarks anymore, that is a problem. In that scenario, FIFA could sign a deal with someone else (2K?) and you could have a game called FIFA but published by 2K.

so EA will have contracts with FIFA/the NFL etc AND Sony etc and they will need to work with both...that's why I'm saying EA might not be as valuable to Microsoft if their aim is exclusivity.

@anoyonmus True, I forgot about their better titles coming to Switch.

@MarioBrickLayer I'd figure if MS bought EA. FIFA would stop being annual and become a single game like Minecraft that continously gets updated and is available on Gamepass.

That'd simultaneously make Gamepass massive in Europe and shunt Xbox ahead of Playstation as the system to own.

Love how consumer friendly gamepass is but how exactly dose it make them any money? Netflix has bad to raise its prices year after year to stay profitable and there production cost has to be less then making these AAA games microsoft throws on gamepass. Is it the plan to build a large sub base then raise the price? They cant make all the much off gamepass monthly then distribute shares of the profits across the various game devs that contribute that they don't own.

@Vincent294 they have supported Switch plenty. Only Call Of Duty is not on there which is understandable as the game takes up a crap ton of space and also not a good franchise anymore

@Dr_Lugae I don't think we fully know why they bought Minecraft yet, but the amount of money they would need to spend to get EA means I'm not sure they see value for them.

I think Microsoft will stop selling games and consoles within 5 years and everything will be Game Pass and Cloud - Mobile + PC Browser + Smart TV app/USB Stick. In that situation, creating FIFA for other platforms is a hassle.

Whilst your buying garbage……could you buy Ubisoft

Makes sense since EA is already part of Gamepass Ultimate….I am guessing they are just waiting for the right time/price.

@RiasGremory the law that prevent foreing companies to buying companies in japan, is from security companies, not videogame companie.

This article is nothing more then speculation. I'm not saying it's not possible, but let's not get too excited!

But could you imagine if Sony got EA? They would have control over all pro sports games.

Why bring up FIFA? It's an open secret that EA is losing the rights to FIFA after next year, so it hardly counts towards their purchase evaluation.

@dkxcalibur No they wouldn't, FIFA and EA are on the outs, their PGA deal expired, Tennis isn't centralized and 2K would still have NBA / WWE. They'd only have... Baseball, NFL and NHL I think?

@link3710, Sony has baseball (MLB the Show), so that's only leave Madden, NHL, & UFC(?) for EA.

@SuperZeldaFun There's no laws against hostile takeovers between Sony and EA, while there is between Microsoft and Nintendo. Nintendo also cares far more about being independent as a company culture. It makes more sense for Microsoft and Nintendo to remain allies over a buyout.

@RR529 I was responding to a theoretical if Sony bought EA what the title list would be.

I'd be so happy if EA was to be acquired by Stadia. It would burry that turd once and for all and we wouldn't hear about FIFA anymore.

@Specter_of-the_OLED has been since the 90s. Microsoft just has more money then the competition. Rules of the game never changed.

Nintendo should buy EA, so they can actually have real sports games and Battlefield.

@link3710 I'm not convinced EA will lose the rights to FIFA, both sides want the best deal, I think there is a lot of posturing going on. It could happen, but the downside for FIFA is it would take a new developer a long time to build up the game to the level it's at now

Sony can't afford EA unless they take on a ton of debt, and that's assuming Microsoft doesn't outbid them, which they are more than capable of.

@link3710 Good call. But I will say that if they had MLB/NFL/NHL, that alone would be a strong hold for them.

I actually expected Microsoft to acquire EA before Activision Blizzard. EA Play being integrated into Xbox Game Pass, Frostbite engine performing somewhat better on Xbox consoles, and the whole Battlefield series having some timed exclusivity deals with Xbox (even when Star Wars was PlayStation) was a very clear indicator from the start.

@moodycat nah Ibisoft actually has multiple games worthwhile. EA has failed for the last few years on everything and Activision put themselves in the bind their in and has really no games except COD which has been going downhill and WoW which has also been skydiving as well. Ubi will be fine and honestly I’d see Nintendo picking them up over anyone else if it happened.

@MarioBrickLayer ...but FIFA as it is now is literally the butt of every joke about sports games? Articles on the regular talk about it being a casino, and I actually know parents who are starting to ban any sort of sports game from their household because of their reputation.

I think FIFA might be starting to realize that their brand is in danger if EA continues. It's only small damage so far, but I wonder how another 10 years of ultimate team adding more microtransaction would affect things.

@Clyde_Radcliffe Due to patches and forced disk installation, we don’t own anything anyway.

Maybe the company that buys EA will receive them with an "unprecedented partnership" and give them a (loot)box full of "surprise mechanics".

Whats the point of buying EA, i mean, kinda bioware, but the heavy hitters are all FIFA, Madden and NBA. I don't see FIFA not taking away the license from EA if a takeover happens and means said game is exclusive to one platform.

I mean, is kinda already happening. EA is a bit of a shell without those big names

Kinda like activison without Warzone and Candy Crush, lots of decent IPs, but you wonder if they actually worth a lot.

When M$ buys a publisher for $70B anyone could be next, unless they flat out deny the sale. I don't know if any publishers are worth more than Activision Blizzard but M$ has cash to spend.

@HefHughner This is my biggest concern. Not EA/Ubi/etc., but rather Capcom, Square Enix and Bandai Namco.

People shouldn't worry about Nintendo being subject to a hostile takeover. Nintendo has already taken serious measures to be fully prepared for such action.

What people should be worried about are Japanese publishers being snatched away by Sony. Bandai Namco, an underrated company compared to the other big ones, in fact offers a huge amount of support for the Switch. Anime games, Musou spinoffs, Atelier and many other niche franchises would all be gone if Sony bought them. Same with Monster Hunter, Megaman, Resident Evil and smaller IP's like Okami and Ace Attorney, all gone if Sony snatches up Capcom. Square Enix is the biggest out of the three, where some of the industry's most prestigious IP's would never touch a Nintendo console. But perhaps even more importantly are Square Enix's smaller IP's and umbrella studios that diligently support the Switch, like Octopath, Bravely, Triangle Strategy, Mana, etc.

Let's say your first response to this concern is to say, "Well then why shouldn't Nintendo buy Bandai Namco?"
And my response would be, do you think Nintendo would boldly promote Atelier's suggestive illustrations all over their Nintendo Tokyo store? I don't think so. Nintendo positions itself public perception carefully , and their in-house, first-party IP, and especially the ones they market the most, currently reflect that. Many IP's of varying degrees would likely be buried in the fallout of publisher buyouts.

Nintendo relies on the support of peripheral, third-party support to balance out their first-party offerings, contributing indirectly while avoiding the responsibility of the IP itself.

If Nintendo were forced to outbid Sony for Bandai Namco, I don't think their more suggestive/niche IP's would be supported in the same way.

Personally I think what Nintendo should do in the short-term is purchase HAL Laboratories outright. Kirby shouldn't be a pseudo-second-party IP any longer. I also think Nintendo should consolidate full control of Pokemon over Game Freak and Creatures Inc, even though that's an entirely different can of worms with hugely different valuations, given Pokemon's behemoth IP value. But given the momentum shift that both Microsoft and serious IP competitors like Genshin Impact are presenting, I believe Nintendo needs to take the quality and perception of the Pokemon IP much more seriously, especially with how controversial and toxic Pokemon video games have become, exaggerated or not.

I want some nerds to buy EA and then they can bring back Ultima. Start with a remake of Ultima 7 part 1 and 2. That would probably be a huge flop but I'd be happy.

Ironic. They could buy up others but couldn't save themselves from being bought.

@Funneefox what exactly is the issue

@Specter_of-the_OLED you do realize bayonetta ip is basically belongs to nintendo since their the only ones that care about the ip more then sony and microsoft ever did and sega knows bayonetta ip is in good hands.

@Lanmanna gaming companies release buggy unfinished products for 70 dollars upwards and have predatory micro transactions and usually have really inhumane stuff going on at their headquarters, furthermore a lot of them have been hopping onto useless trends like NFTs or buying out studios to make themselves look bigger. It’s not about passion or creativity anymore with mainstream gaming, it’s about who can make the most realistic wow gritty shooty bang bang vidya gam regardless of how it turns out upon launch or how many people were broken making it. Nintendo is the one exception to this when it comes to big companies and even then they treat their fans like doormats and are one of the worst examples of legacy content being mishandled I’ve ever seen.

@HefHughner

This is exactly my fear. I don't want MS touching any Japanese publisher. EA has Dead Space and it would be sad to see it be exclusive to one platform.

I very much doubt that. Ubisoft or Sega is way more likely.

@RiasGremory they most certainly can buy a japanese company. Whether or not they want to or if a Japanese will want to sell to them is a different story.

@MarioBrickLayer lol, they won't care as long as they get payed.