- EA’s $55B USD acquisition drives overall deal value in Q3 2025, with a decline in public investments.
- Nintendo Switch 2 launch boosts hardware revenue by 32% with record-breaking sales worldwide.
- Steam revenues, console growth, and rising mobile in-app spending indicate steady recovery across gaming sectors.
The $55 billion USD EA acquisition deal stole the limelight in Q3 2025, with the involvement of investors like Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners.
The acquisition is anticipated to close in early 2027 (Q1 FY27) and is valued at $210 USD per share. In a strategic move, this deal seeks to bring EA's properties, such as Madden NFL, The Sims, and Battlefield, into the media space. It would be supporting PIF's objective of diversifying into international gaming.
This deal surpasses the previous $32B USD TXU leveraged buyout. Additionally, it overall involves $20B USD in debt from JPMorgan Chase and $36B USD in equity from investors. Affinity Partners will acquire a 5% stake in EA, while PIF, which already owned 9.9% of the company, will be the majority shareholder.
Slumped Market Activity Amidst the E.A. Deal
Despite this massive acquisition, the market saw a decline in overall activity, as reported by investment firm Aream & Co.
The public offerings raised a mere sum of $0.3B USD compared to $10.1B USD in the first half of the year. The private investments, on the other hand, remained stagnant at $0.6B USD, as Series A deals slumped for the fifth quarter straight. This signaled caution amongst early-stage backers.
The slowdown in market activity happened due to a lack of major IPOs and only one debt transaction. However, the overall deal value remained steady at $57.8B USD, driven by the EA deal.
Broader market trends showed that the gaming sector is also regaining traction in a quite balanced manner. Steam revenues rose 18%, while console sales jumped 31% with the Nintendo Switch 2 launch. Mobile in-app spending also rebounded to $21B USD (in 2024), pushed largely by leading Asian publishers.
Which Asian Publishers Led Global Gaming?
Dungeon and Fighter, developed by the Chinese developer Tencent, topped China's App Store, while NetEase (China) launched Where Winds Meet and Marvel Rivals in December 2024, which also saw strong revenue. Singapore's Sea Ltd.'s digital entertainment arm, Garena, grew to $559.1M USD in Q2 2025.
Garena, which is also known for the popular game Free Fire, reported a 17.8% increase in “paying” users and a 23% jump in bookings. Southeast Asian publishers collectively led global mobile game downloads with over 5.8B installs. Notably, three Vietnamese publishers were listed in the global top 15 by downloads, showcasing the region's growth in mobile game publishing.
Nintendo Switch 2: A Hardware Sensation
Much like the EA transaction, the Nintendo Switch 2 launch is also changing the statistics of the industry. It boosted hardware spending by 32% reaching $312 million USD. Despite a 6% decline in the accessory segment, the Switch 2 Pro Controller stood out as the best-selling accessory, both by units and dollar sales, for August and year-to-date.
As per current U.S. market data, 2.4M of its units were sold post its launch. Whereas globally, Nintendo sold over 3.5M units within four days of its June 5, 2025, release. This made Switch 2 the company’s fastest‐selling console ever.
By June end, 5.8M units were sold, with quarterly revenue more than doubling annually. Nintendo’s net sales were roughly up 132% for April-June, mostly due to the Switch 2 ramp. It amounted to ¥ 572B ($3.8B USD), with net profit rising 19% annually.
Deal Momentum Amidst Market Evolution
With the massive EA deal taking center stage, Q3 2025 saw 49 mergers and acquisitions. This indicates that investor confidence is recalibrating.
Among these M&As, another deal which stood out was the Tripledot Studios’ $800M USD acquisition of AppLovin’s gaming division. As a part of the agreement, AppLovin will also receive an equity stake of $400M USD in Tripledot.
This deal adds ten more studios and games to the portfolio of Tripledot, making it the biggest independent mobile game developers. It includes titles such as Matchington Mansion and Game of War. With this, Tripledot Studios, the company behind Woodoku, now has 25M daily active users and is valued at $2B USD.
In September 2025, ten M&A deals worth more than $10B USD were completed, said a S&P Global report. This makes the quarter's total $289.48B USD, which is the largest since Q2 2022. However, high development costs and uneven software performance show that long-term success will rely on how well publishers and developers adjust to this rapidly shifting market landscape.
Despite hits like the Nintendo Switch 2 and other mergers that have prompted record-breaking console sales and revenue surges, it will take calculated innovation and cautious market navigation to maintain this momentum.
