EA to buy 20% share of Ubisoft

Mai Valentine

Mai Valentine

Moderator
Publishing giant moves on French superpower.

Electronic Arts is to buy 20 percent of French publisher Ubisoft, the Wall Street Journal has confirmed this morning, at a reported cost of between $85 million and $100 million.

Neither publisher has made comment on the matter.

The deal is subject to approval by US regulators, and has pointed towards further consolidation in the games publishing market. EA has had an aggressive year in terms of acquisition, the latest recipient of which was British developer Criterion Studios at an estimated long-term cost of $200 million.

Ubisoft has enjoyed channelled success in recent years following the acquisition of Red Storm Entertainment, holder of the Tom Clancy brand, and global hits with thrillers such as Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon. Critical acclaim has spread to Ubisoft's other high-flyers, in particular the remakes of Prince of Persia and Beyond Good & Evil - considered by some to be the Western equal of Nintendo's Zelda.

Ubisoft has steered clear of buyout talk up to this point, aside from president Yves Guillemot confirming notions of acquiring British stalwart Eidos at E3 in 2002.

The news could point to a serious shift in policy from EA, since CEO Larry Probst intimated at E3 this May that he didn't expect the firm to be making the moves as the industry coagulates.

"I'm not sure that it's going to be us acquiring other companies and I don't think that anyone's going to acquire us in the industry, but I think you're going to see consolidation in the next three to five years, where there are fewer competitors to us in five years than there are today," he said at the show.
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http://www.gamesindustry.net/content_page.php?aid=6016

I don't like where this is going with EA.
 
well... Nintendo, Sony, And Microsoft better start buying up too... or EA is going to control some SERIOUS market potential.

They could REALLY force (and force unfairly) Nintendo, Sony, and Msoft to cater to them... or they won't get game deals..etc.

I don't like it either.




†B†V† :hat
 
No company should have this much power. On the other hand, this might prompt other companies to start being a little more competitive, especially as BV stated, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Either way, EA should just sit tight for a bit and make some games, instead of buying everyone else's.
 
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Nevermind that Ubisoft is French, it seems like EA is buying out Western developers (Maxis and Criterion for example). I am thinking this means it's not likely that they will go after Japanese devs like Namco, Capcom, Tecmo, etc. At least I hope not.
 
Jeepin4Him said:
I thought they got blocked from buying Criterion?
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No, EA owns Criterion now. Burnout 3 was published by EA.

The list of studios that EA has bought:
Maxis (Sims)
Westwood (C&C)
Criterion (Burnout)
Ubisoft (still pending I think)

And there's probably more that I don't know about.
 
If they put some effort into making good games, or even hire staff that know how to, then I don't have a problem with it. But...this is EA we're talking about.
 
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