Microsoft Acquiring Activision Xbox General Gaming

[Jason]

Microsoft has announced that it intends to acquire Activision

The deal will value Activision at $68.7 billion, far in excess of the $26 billion Microsoft paid to acquire LinkedIn in 2016. It's Microsoft's biggest push into gaming, and the company says it will be the "third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony" once the deal closes.

"Over many decades, the studios and teams that make up Activision Blizzard have earned vast wellsprings of joy and respect from billions of people all over the world," said Phil Spencer in a statement published to Xbox Wire, rattling off the list of Activision subsidiaries like Blizzard Entertainment, Infinity Ward, King, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Treyarch and more that will become a part of the company once the acquisition is complete.

"Upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard's incredible catalog," continued Spencer. That's very intriguing news indeed, with the prospect of more Call of Duty games coming to the subscription service as well as titles like World of Warcraft, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, and Crash Bandicoot."

This is Huge!

 

[Tom]

This is absolutely staggering and really does give Microsoft a massive amount of control over the gaming industry.

 

[Fraser]

Wow, just wow.

Re-loaded my Game Pass - now sitting at 3 years for roughly £6.50 a month

 

[Tom]

When Phil Spencer said they were changing aspects of their relationship with Activision, I did not think that this was a possibility. Not even close

I thought maybe they'd stop exclusive DLC or something.

 

[Bandit]

Wow, this is a massive change in the gaming landscape.

The amount of franchises they just bought is phenomenal. Absolutely an industry changing event.

 

[David76]

Not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, Microsoft has been absolutely killing it for a while now, and offer an insanely good service through Game Pass. On the other hand, I hate exclusivity in any form and think it's a shit practice (though let us not pretend Sony and Nintendo aren't just as guilty of that). Hopefully, this will help give Activision the enema that it's needed for a while now. And not just from the utterly toxic workplace, but from the problems with the actual games as well.

Blizzard has shown massive levels of incompetence with Warcraft for the last few years. Overwatch and its sequel/DLC/whatever it is seems to be a mess as well. Warcraft Reforged was a joke, Starcraft 2 is well past it, and no idea what to expect with Diablo 4.

 

[Deleted member 63]

I don't game. So I am viewing this from the standpoint of an IS manager who sees a significant percentage of a million-ish dollar annual budget go into MS's pockets. And I am not entirely sure I am happy to see them pumping that revenue into acquiring gaming companies. After all, for me they are supplying mission critical enterprise systems. And as it is, those systems don't always perform the way mission critical enterprise systems should (we just had a Windows Server patch go out that broke significant systems, including domain controllers). Bully on them for having the money and wherewithal to do a huge deal like this but I hope this massive investment in entertainment software does not become a distraction from what MS is really all about for many of us, which is platforms like Windows Server, Azure, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics that power IT for a significant chunk of the world's corporations, both large and small.

(end rant)

 

[Gemma]

That came out of nowhere. Wasn't there news just a couple of months ago that Microsoft were re-evaluating their relationship with Blizzard amidst recent scandals?

 

[Deleted member 63]

That came out of nowhere. Wasn't there news just a couple of months ago that Microsoft were re-evaluating their relationship with Blizzard amidst recent scandals?

Maybe they decided the best solution was to buy the company so they control the IP themselves rather than dealing with a scandal-ridden partner. I am only vaguely aware of Activision Blizzard's issues but they sound quite serious.

 

[Tom]

That came out of nowhere. Wasn't there news just a couple of months ago that Microsoft were re-evaluating their relationship with Blizzard amidst recent scandals?

Yes, and clearly that was true!