Apple reportedly held talks about buying out Electronic Arts, the company behind the wildly popular Madden series, The Sims series and many more.
But EA has also supposedly held acquisition talks with others, including Disney.
Apple and Electronic Arts: Mac games galore
Currently, Mac is not the way to go for serious gamers. There are simply too many top games that aren’t available for macOS. That includes Madden 22, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Apex Legends and many others from Electronic Arts. But Apple acquiring EA would ensure that these titles make it to Mac. And it could happen.
Puck reports, “In recent years, as media companies have taken greater interest in the rapidly-growing gaming industry, [CEO Andrew] Wilson and Electronic Arts have held talks with a number of different potential suitors, including Disney, Apple and Amazon, sources with knowledge of those talks told me.”
Whether the acquisition discussions between Apple and Electronic Arts are still going on is unknown. If the Mac-maker did decide to purchase the game developer, the price tag would have to be in the neighborhood of $37.6 billion, EA’s current market capitalization. But Apple has that much cash available, and could also do a stock swap.
News that Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard may have reignited interest from Apple and a range of companies in buying Electronic Arts. But a deal between Apple and EA would be slightly odd in that Apple isn’t currently a games developer. That’s not true for other suitors, like Disney.
