EA eats up Ubisoft...

http://www.mcvuk.com/html/news/story.jsp?newsId=1929429

"Shockwaves were sent through the games industry this morning, with the stunning revelation that Electronic Arts plans to purchase nearly 20 per cent of shares in French outfit Ubisoft.
The 19.9 per cent stake is being purchased from Dutch investment company Talpa Beheer BV, headed by TV billionaire Jon de Mol.

A report on the Wall Street Journal suggested a fee of between $85 million and $100 million had been offered for the shares, the purchase of which will require the ratification of US regulators."

Next up: Activision?

FFS, I'm not even gonna bother posting anything else.

Just a big old 'Tut'

Oh my f%cking goodness gracious me!!!! I can't stand it! EA that piece of crap. Ubisoft is a talented company....now there talent will be lost. Or maybe not

OMG.

What the hell is going on with our precious gaming industry!

Electronic Arts

el

Man, I wish the console wars go back to how the used to be when it was SNES vs Genesis. Now both companies were both equally good and equally popular (actually snes was more popular but only slightly).

This is utter crap!

I don't understand how EA are so succesful considering their completly average and often poor games. Let alone how they manage to buy out their competitors. For shame EA.

Who the hell is next, Sega?

WHat has everyone got against EA? I think they are good and I am sorry that Ubisoft are being taken over. Perhaps this is why Ubisoft has halted it's release date for SC3.

Ubis soft are my fave third party publisher at the mo. think about it, PoP, PoP2, BG+E, XIII, Rayman (which wasn't all that bad) I can't think of many more but they've brought out some pretty risky games that are pretty good aswell. A publisher/developer that is willing to shell out money and time and a huge amount of risk on not one but two sublime games neither of which were market friendly should be praised at the moment (damn shame neither sold in anywhere near the quantities they should have). In my opinion those two games alone (BG+E and PoP) should have become incredibly valuable IPs (on the scale of GTA) and Ubi soft should have become a proper rival to EA. Thats in a fair world.

[ Edited by KingDom on 2004/12/20 14:48 ]

*Gets on knees and starts yelling*

Damn you! Damn you! You blew it up! Damn you to hell, you damn dirty apes...I mean EA.

I know this means EA will own a little bit of Ubi Soft, but that isn't to say they are gonna ruin Ubi Soft completely. It may just mean their games get the advertsing they deserve and sell better. Or they could employ the EA worker treament and suck the life out of a once great company. We shall see.

The thing is (as i posted) if EA can buy a stake in UBI Soft - who cant they buy a stake in? If it was for publishing in future games - then im all for it. But EA are really goin for a big name with big franchises - especially the Tom Clancey range.

Im all for EA investing in small companies - as many companies do, just look at nintendo with Super Mario Ball - but this may be a step to far for the industry in general. I know its not a take over bid - but 20% can easily become 49% and then a takeover could be in the balance - and lets face it EA have that money available. Why dont they ionvest in a company that will make games that dont need to have either a year on the end (200*) or a movie tie in.

Methinks Boss of EA had read tempo's article on the:

The "EA ~ Station"

It's kind of taking the piss now. Sure it might be good for the GameCube but come on. You know EA WILL BE AFTER ROCKSTAR next. Infact their probably on their way down there as we speak.

EA can buy out as many developers as they like, but it STILL won't make their own games any better.

# Waits for Nintendo to buy out EA #

i dont think that Nintendo will ever buy out EA at least i hope not. id rather have them team up with Sega or Capcom. but it probably wouldnt happen considering that Capcom goes back on their word all the time.

EX: "RE4 and Killer 7 gamecube exclusive"

Nintendo would dominate if they had Sega. those have to be the two best companies in the game business.

i mean come on Sonic and Mario working together = DOMINANCE!!!

What a shame. Ubisoft have been a good developer recently - for a western company anyway.

# Waits for Nintendo to buy out EA #

Yeah... If only Nintendo could find that billion dollars it has lying around.

I don't think EA are in a position to be taken over by anyone, save microsoft. And the regulators definitely won't allow that. Probably. Watches out for hefty bribes being handed around.

hmmm maby the EA station could be more of a reality than we thought .
But you never know this actually might be goods and could stop developers from getting into huge finacial problems and dieing , it may seem that could never happen to ubi soft but look at eidos they were a bit like Ubi soft during the PS1 with the hugly succesful TombRaider now they are taliking about selling there company or somthin (dunno there exact situiation).

[ Edited by Blade2t3 on 2004/12/20 16:04 ]

rob_w wrote:
Yeah... If only Nintendo could find that billion dollars it has lying around.

Actually Nintendo have several Billion dollars lying around!

Though I very much doubt that Yamauchi would allow 1 of them to be spent on a Western developer

jesus_is_my_homo wrote:
Nintendo would dominate if they had Sega. those have to be the two best companies in the game business.

i mean come on Sonic and Mario working together = DOMINANCE!!!

Remember when the GC was first launched and we got all the Sonic DC games, Billy Hatcher and Monkey Ball, remember then SEGA went multiformat with Sonic Heroes and now have SEGA Superstars, face it excsluvie games on the GC just don't do the business, SEGA ditched as they could make money elsewhere. SEGA did it, Capcom did it, Namco have done it, and that's why we need Nintendo sadly. Tis a shame.

Though I very much doubt that Yamauchi would allow 1 of them to be spent on a Western developer

When Time Warner tried to buy EA, they were apparently valued at $6 Billion.

It is a big company though isn't it? EA, i mean. Is Ubisoft anyway near as big as EA?
Who will they buy from next, i wonder?

It would deffinatly be a waste of money.

I predict that the next generation will be a crash in the videogames market, with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo falling by the wayside with hundreds of billions of dollars of losses, and all three go bankrupt!

Then a year or two later, the mighty Sega resurrect themselves with a Dreamcast successor (with the help of this gen's 'software only' development) that takes the world by storm. Thus, Sega win back their rightful place as the kings of gaming.

Fin.

Well, that's the dream I had last night, anyway!

msenyszak wrote:
When Time Warner tried to buy EA, they were apparently valued at $6 Billion.

Geez.

That's VERY close to the amount of money Nintendo have stock piled etc!