This news story may be a bit of a stretch, but here we go anyways. This article on WRAL.com notes of a rumor in the latest issue of GamePro magazine that Microsoft is thinking of acquiring Epic Games for $1 billion USD. While the report is based on a single editor’s report, there have been some interesting developments lately that may give this rumor some possibility.
First, Epic Games developed the highly successful Xbox 360 game Gears of War with Microsoft. You don’t need to be a scientist to know that if a gaming partnership worked out well and made a lot of money, then it’ll be no-brainer to continue to work together. Also Epic Games has Unreal Tournament 3 coming out for Xbox 360 in a few months too.
Not only does Epic Games have a big presence in the gaming department, they also have its robust Unreal Engine, which is used in a large number of games. The latest iteration of the engine, Unreal Engine 3, has been used in several current games and has crossed a variety of platforms since becoming a PC mainstay.
Second, since Epic Games is planning to focus on consoles, an acquisition by a major console manufacturer wouldn’t be a bad choice. I imagine that both companies will continue to partly focus on PC gaming development, since both maintain a pretty big influences in that genre.
Lastly, Microsoft has been offering a few bids for big-named companies, such as Yahoo! so the company may be itching to get into the big market acquisition game.
The Game Developers Conference begins today, so we’ll see if any announcements creep up, so stay tuned with GamerNode.
