It all started with a quote from The Street, a NY Wall Street news site, as various rumors suggest that Apple, the titanic computer company behind the MacBook and , is looking to buy some video game property. Precisely, The Street claims that Apple is considering a company takeover of Electronic Arts, the video game publisher behind titles such as , the , and the . Uh oh.

Edge Magazine also added more evidence to Apple's growing gaming itch as from their website notes a few more additions to Apple's corporate offices: Richard Taversham, Xbox Europe's (former) senior director of business, Bob Drebin, "the creator of the Nintendo GameCube's graphics processor" and Mark Papermaster, an IBM chip designer, "also recently joined Apple as head of its iPod business".

Of course, it's no surprise that Apple is snapping up gaming industry executives, with the iPhone making huge waves in mobile gaming and . However, that's no clear evidence that the company is looking to pull a Square Enix and start buying up companies, especially not when you ask Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter. In with Gamasutra, he called the news "retarded" and stated that he didn't "want to start a rumor."

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is highly skeptical of such talk, however. "Sounds retarded to me," he tells Gamasutra.

"Apple could buy Warner Music for around [US]$3 billion, and control 20 percent of all recorded music," he says. "That makes more sense to their current business model than buying EA for more than twice that, doesn't it?"