Microsoft to Swallow Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion

Microsoft is buying gaming big Activision Blizzard in a deal price simply shy of $69 billion—which the Xbox proprietor says will enable it to realize entry to tons of of thousands and thousands of players and place it as “the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.”

In a press launch, Microsoft put the entire of the deal at $68.7 billion, including, “Activision Blizzard is a leader in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher with legendary games including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch and Hearthstone. This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft´s gaming business across mobile, PC, console, and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse.”

Microsoft wrote within the launch that along with the 25 million subscribers in its cross-platform Game Pass service, which affords a rotating array of titles to each Xbox and PC players, the deal will give it entry to “Activision Blizzard’s nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and billion-dollar franchises.” Microsoft added that when the deal goes by, it would have 30 inside recreation improvement studios.

Activision Blizzard owns gaming franchises starting from Call of Duty to World of Warcraft, however it’s gone by a tough patch recently—in July 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued it for rampant sexual harassment, and it reached a separate settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission final yr. Dozens of staff have reportedly walked out.

Microsoft beforehand acquired Bethesda, the writer of Fallout and the Elder Scrolls sequence, in an enormous $7.5 billion deal final yr.

“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,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a statement. “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.”

“For more than 30 years our incredibly talented teams have created some of the most successful games,” Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, added within the assertion. “The combination of Activision Blizzard’s world-class talent and extraordinary franchises with Microsoft’s technology, distribution, access to talent, ambitious vision and shared commitment to gaming and inclusion will help ensure our continued success in an increasingly competitive industry.”