Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the publisher of games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Candy Crush. The acquisition is for $6870 crore (Rs 5.73 lakh crore). Last week, reports surfaced that Microsoft was trying to acquire Activision.
Microsoft completed the takeover after long-running battles with authorities in the UK and US. Activision welcomes Blizzard and their team to Xbox, said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox.
This is the biggest acquisition deal Microsoft has ever made. In 2016, Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26 billion. In 2021, the gaming company ‘Bathesda’ was acquired for 7.5 billion dollars. This is also a big move of Microsoft in the field of gaming. Microsoft had previously announced that it would become the third largest gaming company behind Tencent and Sony.
With the completion of the acquisition, many of the popular games from the Activision, Blizzard and King franchises will be coming to Microsoft’s gaming platform, Xbox Game Pass. In any case, we have to wait for months.
More than nine game studios of Blizzard alone and 11 studios of the King franchise will be part of Microsoft. Activision’s 8,500 employees will also become part of Microsoft.
Following the acquisition, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will remain in place until the end of 2023 as part of the completion of the merger between the two companies.
The takeover bid was blocked by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) citing cloud concerns. Later, the US Federal Trade Commission also tried to block the takeover. Microsoft completed the acquisition by bypassing these moves.
