Microsoft has announced that it will acquire Activision Blizzard for a grand total of $68.7 Billion. The company had recently released a statement regarding this acquisition. According to Microsoft, this deal will ‘bring the joy and community of gaming to everyone, across every device’.
According to the announcement, Bobby Kotick will remain CEO to ‘further strengthen the company’s culture and business growth’. Phil Spencer will take over the role after the deal is finalized.
Microsoft + Activision Blizzard
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is probably the biggest one in all of gaming in recent years. The tech giant previously acquired ZeniMax Media, the holding company for Bethesda Softworks, creator of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls franchises. This deal is huge in terms of Microsoft’s commitment to bringing a large array of video games to its services.
Activision is no stranger to success as it has rolled out successful franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo. All of these are hugely popular, to say the least, and Microsoft will now surely benefit from them. On top of all of that, they will also acquire all the Esports activities via Major League Gaming.
Activision/Blizzard will remain independent until the Summer of 2023, and that is when Microsoft will be in full control of the two gaming giants.
The announcement can be read fully in detail here.
What This Deal Could Bring
The potential that this acquisition has is enormous and the library of games that come with it is even bigger. While Microsoft is lacking in first-party exclusives for Xbox compared to what Sony has pushed out for Playstation, they make it up for the Game Pass subscription service. It offers a huge library of games to players for an affordable price on both Xbox and PC.
We can be sure to expect more Activision-published games to appear on Game Pass. Moreover, it might be no surprise that the upcoming Call of Duty Modern Warfare II might be available on Game Pass some time in the future. We also might see Vanguard or Cold War within the coming months appear on the service. Playstation always had some sort of exclusivity deal with Activision regarding Call of Duty games but this might change soon.
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