Apple Buying Out Sony/EA?

[Neon Ignition]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=271625

Rumours abound as to what Apple is poised to buy out. That said, Disney would seem the obvious one to me considering the position the mouse house is in after the Pixar merger and Marvel acquisition. Plus, Steve Jobs already has his ties with them. For some reason, despite the rumours, I can't imagine Sony or EA going for this.

[toythatkills]

They'll buy some manufacturer that makes some obscure chip for the iPhone, and everyone will cry at how stupid they were that they thought Apple were going to buy Sony.

[Lyris]

^ This. These big companies buying each other never seems to go through.

Although I would be curious to see what Apple would do if Microsoft's rumoured buyout of Adobe went through...

[Sketcz]

Maybe they'll buy out Sega and launch a new piece of hardware under the Sega name - after all, both companies like white-coloured hardware. Dreamcast 2 ahoy.

Buddum tish! Someone had to light that oil rag. I'll be here all week people.


EDIT:
Alternatively, maybe they spend the money on cancelling world debt, solving global food and water shortages, financing a cure for (INSERT DISEASE HERE), and using the change to promote world peace.

Just a thought.

The Marxist in me feels that money should go to the General Secretary of the Party, to better facilitate the state's needs.

To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability as they say.

[abigsmurf]

What utter garbage.

Sony have more assets and more equity than Apple. If they merged, Apple would be the one swallowed up. Not to mention it would pretty much be broken up the second it happened by regulators across the world. Then of course there's the spectre of AOL Time Warner...

Buying out EA? Why would they want to? Taking on a company that is haemorrhaging money and doesn't do a great deal of iphone or mac development.

There's been lots of rubbish about how huge Apple have become. Almost all of that is down to 2 things: Apple don't pay dividends and Apple share prices are frighteningly over valued.

The second there's a high profile flop at apple, a regulator decides they need to be split or someone at the company sneezes, there's going to be an almighty crash and they're going to have to start paying out massive dividends to prevent it going low enough for a hostile takeover.

[DryRice]

Rumours? Well rumours they are

[charlesr]

they're going to have to start paying out massive dividends to prevent it going low enough for a hostile takeover.

Shhhhh, I've reached 32% already. Need more time.

[mekanor]

Maybe they'll buy out Sega and launch a new piece of hardware under the Sega name - after all, both companies like white-coloured hardware. Dreamcast 2 ahoy.

You do realise that you'll now be quoted as an industry insider in a surprise sega hardware leak article by zach morris

[Flabio]

Do people still read C&VG?

[Neon Ignition]

Agree about the position Apple's in. Too much of their success in the last few years has been down to the iPod series which is largely in part been due to it being fashionable to own one which is a dangerous position to be in because of how little it takes to become unfashionable. At the moment I, despite the praise, I look at the number of iPod variants and the design of the iPad and it looks like they're running out of ideas. iTunes is an increasingly awful piece of software also. I think that's why they've been reluctant to take a real chance on the gaming side of things, it would be a high risk/high profile move that could lose them confidence within the market in one swoop.

[Sketcz]

You do realise that you'll now be quoted as an industry insider in a surprise sega hardware leak article by zach morris

I couldn't resist putting that viral out there - I apologise to the faithful.

[Brad]

The more Apple become popular with the masses, the less popular they are with me. Oh, and Apple buying Sony is preposterous!

[briareos_kerensky]

Apple merges with Sony, becoming Sopple.

The first step will be to ditch Intel as CPU vendor and computers will be powered with Cell or Cell-derived processors and a GPU that can barely do 2D acceleration.
After a few years Apple computers and Sony console become one single entity and videogaming will become the coolest thing in the world...as long as you can afford it.

PSP2 and iPhone 5 will be merged together to offer a gaming device with phone capabilities and digital download only games through a new Appstore, which is often down for maintenance and requires a firmware update each month to be accessed.

[toythatkills]

The more Apple become popular with the masses, the less popular they are with me.

Are the two related?

That's pretty stupid.

[Brad]

Are the two related?

That's pretty stupid.

Er, you've jumped the gun a bit there. Apple aren't becoming less popular with me just because they are gaining more mass appeal. That would be ridiculous. It's just something I noticed happening:

The masses think the iPhone App store is great whereas all I see is the problems with that system (cost and difficulty of developer entry for example)

Their abandonment of Java - the masses couldn't care less but as a developer I do

OSX 10.7 being based around features I don't need (but that make it work more like an iPhone/iPad) or want whereas 10.6 was a great upgrade as it focused on core performance.

Mac is still my computing platform of choice for now but I really don't like the way things are going.