Microsoft Acquires Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion

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Microsoft has announced that it has agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard. As in, the creators of Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Crash Bandicoot, and so much more. Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report up to Phil Spencer as CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Until the transaction goes through, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming will operate independently. The acquisition is described as an all-cash transaction valued at $68.7 billion.

"Players everywhere love Activision Blizzard games, and we believe the creative teams have their best work in front of them," said Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, as part of the announcement. "Together we will build a future where people can play the games they want, virtually anywhere they want."



It's hard to accurately describe the magnitude of the deal, should it go through. The acquisition would see Blizzard Entertainment, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Treyarch, and more report up to Phil Spencer.

"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chairman and CEO, as part of the announcement. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all."


According to the press release, the closing of the transaction is expected to happen in fiscal year 2023. As noted above, the two companies will continue to operate independently until then, and it will still need to make it through regulatory review, shareholder approval, and the like. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will continue to serve in his position for now. If it does go through, Microsoft will become the third-largest gaming company in the world by revenue with Tencent and Sony ahead of it still.

The Activision Blizzard acquisition is just the latest high-profile purchase by Microsoft. The acquisition of Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media concluded in early 2021.



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Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/microsoft-activision-blizzard-acquisition/

Comments

"Microsoft Acquires Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion" :: Login/Create an Account :: 10 comments

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AngelWhatPosted:

i truly believe they did this because its involving metaverse......... JUST SAYING !!!!

AnimePosted:

Just read this. Great for Xbox many good things to come.

RwxzPosted:

Hopefully they have good ideas from this purchase, Maybe they'll make WoW great again which im hoping for. :)

SeanPosted:

Gojo Wonder if this will affect next gen console sales substantially.


They will need to earn that money back somehow and console hardware is a loser they will keep the games on as many platforms as possible to recover the investment and keep everything ticking over without a doubt.

The question is what games will they keep to just Xbox? it wont be CoD more like Crash etc.

GojoPosted:

Wonder if this will affect next gen console sales substantially.

SeanPosted:

legacy1567 Its funny seeing all the playstation fanboys crying on social media about this


Just been reading some of it this whole thing is just wild

legacy1567Posted:

Its funny seeing all the playstation fanboys crying on social media about this

tO0tPosted:

I hope this leads to great things in the future. hopefully this leads to them changing their ways to be more for the gamers than money/ greed.
Also activision games on game pass would be great.

XeCookiePosted:

Wow this is huge news, Wonder if this will mean Xbox is gonna be COD exclusive forever now.

BorutoPosted:

This is insane. Hopefully great things to come from this!