美国全国广播公司财经频道的Jim Goldman吉姆-高曼建议苹果公司可以考虑收购电子艺界公司，其理由也很充分，苹果有大把的现金，电子艺界在糟糕的营收预期下股价将大幅下跌，电子艺界比美国动视Activision来得更便宜，以及电子艺界可以和苹果的iphone OS和苹果TV完美融合。

steve_jobs

但是旧金山纪事报的Dan Frommer丹-佛摩尔并不这么认为，他觉得一旦苹果参与电子艺界并购就将是个无法挽回的错误。

他的理由是苹果在他的本行做得相当不错，所有的应用只是辅助地实现苹果的营销增长，应用不可能取代苹果现在的优势。

第二个理由是苹果的应用程序商店目前来讲已经很完美了。它让各路的开发者趋之若鹜，并且苹果还能从中抽取30%的利益提成，还有什么能比这个战略更完美的。

第三个理由是并购电子艺界可能对任天堂之类的公司是一个完美的补充，但是对于苹果绝对不是。就相当于让斯蒂夫-乔布斯去做皮克斯一样，做游戏研发同样是个疯狂的行为。

第四个更加致命，电子艺界的游戏大部分基于之前的技术，而不是新一代的技术。

斯蒂夫-乔布

If Apple’s going to do anything with its giant wad of cash, it should NOT buy Electronic Arts, the videogame company.

Yet that’s the advice that CNBC’s Jim Goldman gave yesterday, in a post called “Apple Could, Should Buy Electronic Arts.” Why did he write that?

* Apple has a lot of cash.
* EA stock is down after terrible earnings.
* It’s cheaper than Activision.
* Apple could marry its iPhone OS and Apple TV, and bam! Apple could reinvent console gaming.

Perhaps, but these are still not reasons for Apple to own Electronic Arts. Instead, all we can think of are reasons for Apple NOT to own EA:

* Apple is, at its core, a very high-margin hardware maker. Even if it does something new in the living room that resembles a game console, it’s the hardware where Apple stands to make profits

– not selling apps. Apple repeatedly says that iTunes — including the iPhone/iPad App Store — is basically run on a breakeven basis to help sell more high-margin hardware.

* Apple’s app platform strategy is already working perfectly! It’s getting big companies like EA and Gameloft to make iPhone and iPad games for free! Actually, these companies are PAYING Apple — the 30% cut from app sales — for the privilege of developing and selling games for Apple gadgets. This is the same strategy Apple would want to take into the living room. Not a lower-margin, first-party app strategy. (EA lost almost $700 last fiscal year!)

* Sure, you could argue that first-party games (“Mario,” “Zelda,” etc.) help Nintendo’s systems, and that MAYBE that sort of exclusive stuff could help Apple. (Or that maybe it takes Steve Jobs’ genius to make games amazing — à la Pixar.) But Apple has already been down this path, and it chose the platform strategy instead. Recall that Apple built its own beautiful “Texas Hold’Em” game for the iPhone, fearing that no one would know how to make a beautiful iPhone game. But so many developers quickly made so many beautiful iPhone games that Apple has not had to make any iPhone games since then. Now it’s focusing on game technology, like in-app payments for virtual goods in iPhone OS 3, and a new social gaming framework for iPhone OS 4. That’s what Apple should be focusing on.

* Moreover the kinds of bloated games EA makes — like Madden, the Sims, etc. — are based on the last generation of gameplay, not the next generation. Even the iPhone games EA has made aren’t nearly as nice as many games designed for the iPhone from scratch. If there were EVER a reason for Apple to own its own game studio, it should at least be looking at the future of mainstream, casual gaming: Social, lightweight, touchscreen, accelerometer, etc. Better acquisition targets may include Ngmoco (makers of “Rolando,” “Eliminate,” “Touch Pets,” and a bunch of other awesome iPhone games), Firemint (makers of “Flight Control”), Zynga, etc.

Yes, there are plenty of reasons for Apple to continue to work closely with Electronic Arts. But there are no reasons for Apple to own it.