Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter has responded to the speculation that Apple should purchase a company like Sony or Electronic Arts by actually agreeing with my analysis for a change: Apple shouldn’t bother with videogame companies.
“I don’t think a video game company acquisition makes sense… if they make an acquisition, they are far more likely to focus on what they’re already good at, which is streaming entertainment content. Netflix or Coinstar (owner of Redbox video rental kiosks) make more sense to strengthen Apple’s movie download service.
I don’t see them buying a video game company at all, especially a publisher that supports competitive platforms.”
Showing that he’s paid to be a video game industry analyst, Pachter went on to point out that more applicable targets would be mobile publishers Chillingo and ngmoco, seeming to forget that they were both recently bought by Electronic Arts and DeNA, respectively. He does note that Digital Chocolate (EA founder Trip Hawkins’s company) or Crowdstar (the #2 social games company after Zynga) would also be applicable, and in this, I agree with him.
Since wildly throwing out names seems to be in vogue nowadays, let me throw out one more wild guess and name one company who has made their fortune developing for Apple’s products: Korean-based self-publisher Gamevil, known for Baseball Superstars and Zenonia. They also support android and the Playstation Network, but those games usually come well behind iPhone/iPad games, and that support isn’t integral to their business model.
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