Microsoft has just announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion. Activision Blizzard is known for developing popular games such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and Hearthstone. Microsoft stated that they will be acquiring nearly 10,000 employees from Activision Blizzard as part of this deal, which was announced today – January 18, 2022.
For a long time, Microsoft has been aggressively entering the gaming industry by strengthening their Xbox studio lineup. This deal, valued at around 70 billion dollars, is the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history and the biggest in the video game industry to date. Until now, Microsoft’s largest acquisition was LinkedIn, which was purchased for 26.2 billion dollars in 2016, followed by the acquisition of Nuance Communications for 19.7 billion dollars last year.
Microsoft also confirmed in the statement that Phil Spencer will become the CEO of Microsoft Gaming once the deal is completed, and Microsoft executives stated that upon completion of the deal, the company will become the third-largest gaming company in the world in terms of revenue, after Tencent and Sony.
The acquisition of Activision Blizzard will undoubtedly strengthen Microsoft’s Game Pass library, as the company’s goal now is to bring more titles to the Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass services. The company also announced that the Xbox Game Pass service has surpassed 25 million subscribers. It is worth mentioning that Activision Blizzard, according to the latest statistics, has nearly 400 million monthly active players. Microsoft officials also stated that after this deal, Microsoft will have 30 in-house game development studios.
