Speculation: Sony buys EA - and here is why!

[8BiTw0LF]

In my opinion this is pretty much a no-brainer at this point - and here is why:

PlayStation is an official Champions League sponsor - that fits extremely well with EA Sports FC (and every official FIFA tournament has been held on PlayStation in the past).

In Apex Legends there's two official tournaments - Global Series on PC and Master Circuit on PlayStation.

If anyone wants to compete in NBA - it's on PlayStation.

Both companies produce content for Marvel:

EA and Marvel Entertainment Announce a Multi-Title Collaboration to Make Action Adventure Games

First Title In-Development is an Iron Man Game out of Motive Studios Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) today announced it is collaborating with Marvel on a long-term deal to develop at least three new action adventure games that will be available for consoles and PC. Each of these games will be...

news.ea.com

- and we know what Insomniac has released since 2018 - next up: Wolverine!

 

[historia]

You realize that PS has been sponsoring UCL since PS1 right?

 

[Bryank75]

It would be utterly insane and the only move that really is comparable to Activision...in many ways it would be more significant, as they have more major franchises than Activision.

Also I think Xbox fanboys are terrified of this move because it threatens the EA Play side of Gamepass and it gives Sony control of Madden, EA Sports FC and many others... along with Star Wars Jedi Survivor series, Apex and the Ironman game, the Mass Effect series and a massive back catalog.

Sony could put EA Play into PSPlus alongside Ubisoft+, which is already in there.

Not to mention Battlefield, Titanfall and other shooters.. more important now than ever.

It would cost so much though...possibly 40 billion or more. Could Sony do it? Yes but they'd have to move a lot of assets around.

 

[Entropi]

Sony ain’t buying a big publisher unless they want to go broke.

 

[Dabaus]

NBA 2K is from 2K, not EA. I say sony focus on Japan.

 

[Dabaus]

Sony does need to hurry up and make some moves though. They look pathetic now, and all the price hikes and lay offs are ruining whatever built in good will advantages the brand has.

 

[Bryank75]

EA are 34.47 Billion right now... that's a lot.

So, it would be a monumental effort for Sony to buy them... they'd have to really want them.

 

[gokuss4]

EA are 34.47 Billion right now... that's a lot.

So, it would be a monumental effort for Sony to buy them... they'd have to really want them.

Ea have lot of valuable IPs
Ea sports sell around 30m copies every year
alot of people in my country just buy fifa every year to play on playstation

 

[Playstation Sucka]

Ea have lot of valuable IPs
Ea sports sell around 30m copies every year
alot of people in my country just buy fifa every year to play on playstation

You need to decide what do you need EA or Take two you can only get one

 

[GrayWolf323]

I mean maybe? I think if they were to go after a big publisher that Take Two fits better but honestly I expect they’ll look to pickup their valued partners first

I’ve long said that Kadokawa makes sense because in addition to giving Sony ownership of Fromsoft they’d also really fit well with the cross media push

 

[Danja]

EA would be a better get than Activision definitely more valuable but doubt Sony can take on such a financial responsibility either.

They do need to align themselves temporarily with EA though, try to consolidate around them and squeeze out the competition for a bit till they figure out the big next step.

 

[Killer_Sakoman]

Sony will buy no shit. Xbox is going 3rd party and everyone else is already 3rd party. Cloud will never be a thing. So, Sony is good.

 

[Yurinka]

It would cost so much though...possibly 40 billion or more. Could Sony do it? Yes but they'd have to move a lot of assets around.

EA has a market cap of $34.47B. Recent big acquisitions have been paid at a 40-60% premium. Let's say Sony would pay 40%, that's $48.26B.

Sony has a market cap of $106B and obviously only a small portion of it is cash and equivalents. So no, Sony can't buy EA because it's too expensive for them.

In addition to this, they have under $140M for acquisitions, investments and stocks repurchases for this fiscal year and said they don't plan acquisitions for the short term and that pushed back to the mid to long term (maybe once they complete the spinoff and selling of 80% of their banks division, a process that will take 2-3 years).

So they won't buy EA. In addition to this, it would be a finantial suicide for EA or whoever else could by EA to remove the EA games from PS because to make the EA games is very expensive and need the PS revenue and moneyhats, in the same way that also is to remove CoD from PS. In addition to this, EA is in a decade long growing trend and may improve because now without ABK is closer to become again the biggest and most important 3rd party publisher.

Meaning, they can get better deals negotiating with platform holders to ask for a better revenue cut or marketing deals. Which means it will help them grow even more. And all that means that stakeholders even if they'd want to sell know it isn't good time to do it because it's very likely that the value of their stocks will continue growing too, so to sell in a few years for now would give them way more money than to sell now.

TLDR: Sony can't buy EA, Sony said won't make important acquisitions for a while, EA very likely don't want to sell, and if someone would buy EA (something I think won't happen) and doesn't want to commit finantial suicide would keep the EA games on PlayStation.

 

[Vertigo]

Sony doesn’t have difficulty selling consoles or software. This potential dick measuring contest fans want between the two is something not in Sony’s best interests.

Unlike Microsoft and Xbox, SIE actually knows to foster cultivate game development.

Much rather they continue to work to forge partnerships with developers and potentially signing those that fit instead. Less risky and better business imo

EA is in a much better spot than they were last gen tho. I’d like to see them swing for the top 3rd party publisher spot (altho they are by default now?)

 

[Darth Vader]

EA has a market cap of $34.47B. Recent big acquisitions have been paid at a 40-60% premium. Let's say Sony would pay 40%, that's $48.26B.

Sony has a market cap of $106B and obviously only a small portion of it is cash and equivalents. So no, Sony can't buy EA because it's too expensive for them.

Nonsense.

Nippon Telegraph had a market cap of around $95B by the end of 2020. During that year, it acquired the remaining minority stake it owned in NTT Docomo for around $40B. Block, Inc. (called Square at the time) had a market cap of around $75B and it acquired Afterpay for $29B. Sony would have to foot around 46% of their own Market cap to acquire EA, whereas Nippon footed 42% and Block footed 39%.

Sony can absolutely afford them.

Feel free to react with "ahahaha" or say I'm wrong.

 

[toadsage44]

This is crazy talk, but... As much as I'd like to say I'm against consolidation, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want this to happen so I could see Xbox and their slimy fans on the other end of the shit they've been pulling for 5 years now. If I had it my way, Sony would buy Kadokawa, Square, EA, and Take2 to really put Phil Spencer in his place. All that being said, I just don't see it happening Sony seems content with buying no-name devs and letting Xbox scoop up the entire 3rd party landscape. Hopefully they'll do something big and prove me wrong.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

You realize that PS has been sponsoring UCL since PS1 right?

Didn't know it was since then. I thought it was since the PS2 days.

It would cost so much though...possibly 40 billion or more. Could Sony do it? Yes but they'd have to move a lot of assets around.

Maybe that's why they're selling Sony Financial Group - and firing a lot of their first party developers - and closing some of their live service projects. If they obtain EA, they got one of the biggest live service cashcows in the business, Apex Legends.

Remember Microsoft fired 10k people right before the ActiBlizz acquisition?

 

[8BiTw0LF]

NBA 2K is from 2K, not EA. I say sony focus on Japan.

Jesus, there's more than one NBA game franchise? lol didn't know, but now that I think of it I remember the 2K logo on some of the NBA games.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Don’t see it happen unless they buy the EA Entertainment division and leave the sports licensing segment to someone else

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

EA has a market cap of $34.47B. Recent big acquisitions have been paid at a 40-60% premium. Let's say Sony would pay 40%, that's $48.26B.

Sony has a market cap of $106B and obviously only a small portion of it is cash and equivalents. So no, Sony can't buy EA because it's too expensive for them.

In addition to this, they have under $140M for acquisitions, investments and stocks repurchases for this fiscal year and said they don't plan acquisitions for the short term and that pushed back to the mid to long term (maybe once they complete the spinoff and selling of 80% of their banks division, a process that will take 2-3 years).

So they won't buy EA. In addition to this, it would be a finantial suicide for EA or whoever else could by EA to remove the EA games from PS because to make the EA games is very expensive and need the PS revenue and moneyhats, in the same way that also is to remove CoD from PS. In addition to this, EA is in a decade long growing trend and may improve because now without ABK is closer to become again the biggest and most important 3rd party publisher.

Meaning, they can get better deals negotiating with platform holders to ask for a better revenue cut or marketing deals. Which means it will help them grow even more. And all that means that stakeholders even if they'd want to sell know it isn't good time to do it because it's very likely that the value of their stocks will continue growing too, so to sell in a few years for now would give them way more money than to sell now.

TLDR: Sony can't buy EA, Sony said won't make important acquisitions for a while, EA very likely don't want to sell, and if someone would buy EA (something I think won't happen) and doesn't want to commit finantial suicide would keep the EA games on PlayStation.

"EA is too expensive for Sony" yeah same way Fox was "too expensive" for Disney .

Anyway I don't even care much about EA's content and it'd be a nothingburger for me personally if Sony made a move to get them, regardless if/how EA would fit into their business growth prospects. A Japanese publisher would be a lot more exciting for me because they likely would have a lot more interesting IP than a Western pub like EA does.

So it is what it is.