At $68.7 billion, Microsoft bids to acquire Gaming company, Activision Blizzard

This is one of the biggest bids Microsoft has ever made for a game company. The company plans to buy Activision Blizzard for $95 per share, which would make the all-cash deal worth a whopping $68.7 billion.

In terms of revenue, Microsoft says this deal would make it the “third-largest” game company, and games like Call of Duty and Candy Crush would fall under the company’s umbrella. Microsoft plans to add games from Activision Blizzard to its Game Pass service as part of the deal.

Microsoft also cited mobile gaming as a reason for the acquisition. In addition to making King’s games for phones part of Microsoft’s business, the deal promises to bring games like Halo and Warcraft to more devices.

Microsoft’s fiscal year ends in June, and if regulators and Activision Blizzard shareholders agree to the buyout, it will happen sometime in Microsoft’s fiscal year in 2023. All of the companies’ directors have already approved the deal, so it will go through.

Even though Activision Blizzard is still in the middle of a scandal, you shouldn’t expect a lot of changes in the company’s leadership. In the end, Bobby Kotick will stay as Activision Blizzard’s CEO, despite calls for him to step down. He will now report to Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft Gaming.

Kotick has said that Microsoft’s move was a chance to “further strengthen” Activision Blizzard’s workplace culture and set a new standard for inclusiveness in a letter from the company to employees. There were no plans for reform, but he said there would be “minimal changes” to staff counts.

It is possible that the merger may take place, which would allow Microsoft to better compete with industry titans Tencent and Sony, both of which have been on acquisition sprees in the recent past.

As the popularity of metaverse gaming grows, Kotick sees this as an advantage for his company. So, in terms of future-proofing the company, this may be more important than anything else.

It’s not over yet. There are still a lot of big questions to be answered as it’s too early to tell where the entire story is going…

Furthermore, Microsoft didn’t say how many Activision Blizzard games would be available only on Xbox consoles, or only on PCs with Windows. As well, it’s not clear how much Microsoft might have an impact on the development of certain franchises. It’s not certain that Microsoft will keep Call of Duty and other big games only on the Xbox in the near future.

Activision Blizzard makes a lot of money from selling games on the PlayStation, and dropping that platform would have a big impact on the company’s clout in the games industry.