Get your fake-o-meters close to hand people, cause this one's a doozy. Reuters is reporting that Microsoft has expressed interest in acquiring Electronic Arts. Their source for the story? Well, they don't have one. The reason for the sudden interest? Yeah, that's never made clear either. All they have is the following quote from Frederic Ruffy, options strategist at WhatsTrading.com in New York:

"There's talk that Microsoft might be interested in acquiring Electronic Arts. It's unsubstantiated chatter, but it's out there."

Based on that kind of solid reporting, shares of EA jumped over 4 percent and Microsoft saw their own stocks increase in value by almost a full percentage point. While I promise that we're going to keep our eyes on this one, I can almost assure you that this deal is never ever ever ever ever going to happen. Microsoft is constantly walking through a perpetual minefield of anti-trust suits, and an outright purchase of the second-largest third-party games developer would only throw fuel on that fire. Hell, MS couldn't even get it together to buy out 2K Games when that company was practically giving it away. So, yeah, probably not going to happen.

[Source]