UPDATE
Shortly after publishing this story Microsoft told Video Games Chronicle that Bobby Kotick would continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard.
“Bobby Kotick will continue to serve as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and he and his team will maintain their focus on driving efforts to further strengthen the company’s culture and accelerate business growth,” the company said.
The original story follows on below.
Well, this escalated quickly. Within the hour reports started surfacing that Microsoft was planning to acquire embattled developer and publisher Activision Blizzard and, well it’s all true.
Microsoft has now confirmed that it plans to acquire Activision Blizzard and become the third largest gaming company in the world behind Tencent and Sony.
“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 chief executive officer and chairman, Satya Nadella, said 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,” the CEO added.
Upon completion of this acquisition, Microsoft would become the owner of Activision, Blizzard and King, as well as all the smaller studios that fall under the wider Activision Blizzard banner.
“Until this transaction closes, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming will continue to operate independently. Once the deal is complete, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me as CEO, Microsoft Gaming,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer.
The acquisition is said to be costing Microsoft upwards of $50 billion according to the Wall Street Journal.
When the acquisition is finalised, Spencer says that Microsoft will offer “as many Activision Blizzard games as we can withing Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass”.
This all raises an interesting question – what is going to happen to Bobby Kotick?
That is unclear at this stage but we have to think that given Spencer’s comments about the situation at Activision Blizzard, there may not be space for him once the ink dries.
If this is how Microsoft is starting 2022, we’re keen to see what else the firm has on the cards.
