Apple May Be Considering Buying Unity, an Analyst Suggests

In his latest write-up, Dreunen predicts that Apple may eventually purchase Unity, the engine behind over 70% of mobile games, which was also fully integrated into Apple Vision Pro at launch. He argues that such a deal would allow Apple to block Unity from building its own direct-to-consumer infrastructure, eliminating a potential competitor, while also undercutting Epic by offering a fully integrated toolchain for mobile game development and monetization.

Additionally, Dreunen notes that “payment providers like Xsolla present an additional threat to Apple in this context as they have made it part of their business model to enable game makers’ direct-to-consumer initiatives,” so offering content creators more options and investing in its ecosystem “would benefit both consumers and Apple.”

As an added bonus, the analyst says, Unity is relatively cheap at the moment, with a market cap of about $8.9 billion, down from $56 billion at its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic – a drop in a bucket for Apple with its ~$3 trillion net worth. Even so, should the acquisition actually happen, it would be Apple’s largest purchase in its history, surpassing the $3 billion acquirement of headphone maker Beats.

That said, I’d like to emphasize once again that this is not an insider report but rather a prediction made by an analyst – with even Dreunen himself describing it as “spicy” – and as such should be seen as nothing more than a brain-scratching “What if?” scenario. At the time of writing, neither Apple nor Unity has responded to the prediction, leaving Apple’s next move to maintain its position in the mobile gaming industry uncertain.

Read the full write-up on Substack and don’t forget to join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.