100% what the Gouv'Na said and then some. it would be foolish.

EA buyout rumors have been running rampant for over a year. It doesn't financially make any sense for Microsoft to buy EA or Sqaure Enix for that matter.

EA is a reliant on its multiplatform games and is finally going to return to profitability this fiscal year after years of restructuring.

Square Enix relies on heavy Japanese sales along with mutiplatform and handheld releases for their business model.

Absorbing either or both of these companies would drag on Microsoft's bottom line tremendously.

If anyone was going to buy EA it should be Disney. With all their properties and their recent aquisition of Marvel, a strong publisher and developer makes sense for them.

I'm not really understanding how aquiring EA (or another company) would be illegal.  Each company has first party studios that develop exclusively for their console.   If Microsoft bought EA, then they would be a first party studio for Microsoft and likely still publish their own games, they would just be for PC and Xbox360.  No different than what Naughty Dog does for Sony.  EA would just be a very large acquisition. 

The reason Microsoft isn't allowed to include their own browser has more to do with the fact that they were using one platform/monopoly (Windows) to push another product/monopoly (Internet Explorer) and they were not allowing competitors equal opportunity to be included. 

EA is not worth it, they don't own most of their franchises. Their devs are not known to be best in the world. To buy them out would be a waste of money.

Se would not sell, Japanese would never sell to MS.

They are certain things that money alone can't buy..consider these as no different.

If EA couldn't go multiplatform, they would lose a lot of sales and probably end up firing their workforce and making a loss. Microsoft doesn't want that.

for everything else there is Microsoft?

Naughty Dog is a studio.

EA is the second largest game publisher in the world, with a revenue of $4.2 billion last year.

EDIT: Also, ND has around 100 employees, while EA has somewhere in the realm of 8000.

They'd rather buy third party timed exclusives instead of studios for some reason.

You're talking about a SERIOUSLY LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG term investment at best....

It's just not worth it, IMO. Way to expensive.