Microsoft to Acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 Billion.

We’re seeing something hoooge.

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it’ll be buying gaming giant World of Warcraft-creator Activision Blizzard in what has been tagged as its “biggest achievement yet”: the tech giant is set to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion in cash – around 45% more than the gaming company was worth before the announcement. The deal comes hot on the heels of Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of games maker Bethesda last year, and marks the company’s biggest purchase ever. Microsoft’s hoping it’ll do more than just help it compete with the likes of Sony too: it could enable the company to develop a metaverse that spans everything from gaming to office work.

What it means for Microsoft

If the deal is approved and pulls through, we could see it completed by June 2023. Microsoft PR has confirmed that Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard for the time being.

Once the deal is complete however, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming who is currently the head of the Xbox brand and leads the global creative and engineering teams responsible for gaming at Microsoft.
For now, Activison Blizzard will operate independently and until the deal closes, after which Microsoft will intend to offer as many of their games as possible through XBOX and PC Game Pass.

With this deal, Microsoft will now have the following game studios –Activision Shanghai, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Trends Entertainment, High Moon Studios, Infinity ward, Raven software, Sledge Hammer Games, Solid state, Toys for Bob, Treyarch, Blizzard Entertainment, Vicarious Vision and King Digital Entertainment.

To better put that into perspective, because the one thing that is more recognisable here are the IPs, they’ll now have access to Overwatch, Diablo, Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Tony Hawks Pro Skater and a ton of others.

As of the announcement, it was stated that XBOX Game Pass had reached about 25 million subscribers…which is crazy.
For many, Phil Spancer hasn’t quite answered or given response to how Microsoft will be handling the sexual allegations within Activision Blizzard. What is however clear that is for now, Bobby Kotick will still stay as the CEO of the company, which has largely been tagged as “disappointing”.

What it means for Sony

Next to Microsoft, Sony is the big player in the gaming world and even though the dust is yet to settle, Sony suffered from Microsoft’s big push into gaming. Microsoft’s announcement that it planned to purchase Activision Blizzard sent the Sony’s share price down 13%—a loss of $20 billion to its market cap—in Tokyo.
The acquisition of Bethesda by Microsoft was tagged a big deal, but this is a magnitude much higher. The Call of Duty franchise has been deemed to be what will really affect Sony in a monumental way, judging from what they did with Bathesda games – having them as Xbox console exclusives.

With Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the question of whether or not Call of Duty — along with so many of Activision Blizzard’s other major franchises — will be exclusive to Xbox and PC answers itself. Just like with its acquisition of ZeniMax Media (Bathesda’s Parent company), Microsoft isn’t going to spend inordinate amounts of money to put games on platforms it doesn’t own. It would rather bring players into its own ecosystem, have them buy a Game Pass subscription or an Xbox console.

There has been news of Sony looking to launch its own subscription plan – Spartacus – in 2022. With this deal many wonder if they will allow Game Pass instead of forging on. We can’t say for sure whether Sony will be forced to go after a big publisher or developer, but it is certain that with the loss of a big name like Call of Duty to Microsoft, Sony has truly been hit hard. This deal is clearly a move on Microsoft’s part to help further bolster their Game Pass Library. At this point maybe Sony needs to be focusing on maintaining the high quality standard their games are known for, as well as making preparations for a possible future without games like COD on PlayStation.

Finally, many have brought forth antitrust issues that Microsoft may encounter in the completion of this deal stating that Microsoft is becoming a monopoly. We can’t exactly state where the Department of Justice will be on it, but I’ve got my fingers crossed with the best hopes however for all the parties involved…and of course, the gamers who may or may not have to get XBOX consoles or subscribe to Game Pass.

#OnucheOfTheRoots #Job32:8 💙👑🌍

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