Microsoft Acquires Activision Blizzard for $68.7 Billion - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 18 January 2022 / 6,105 Views
Microsoft has announced it is acquiring Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion.
IPs that will be owned by Microsoft once the deal closes include Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft, and more.
"As a team, we are on a mission to extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet," said head of Xbox Phil Spencer. "We all know that gaming is the most vibrant and dynamic form of entertainment worldwide and we’ve experienced the power of social connection and friendship that gaming makes possible."
"As we pursue that mission, it is incredibly exciting to announce that Microsoft has agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard.
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. We are incredibly excited to have the chance to work with the amazing, talented, dedicated people across Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Treyarch and every team across Activision Blizzard."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella added, "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. 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 acquisition has not closed yet and until it does Activision Blizzard and Xbox will operate independently. Once it is complete Activision Blizzard will report to Spencer and will bring as many Activision Blizzard titles to Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass as possible.
The article also revealed Xbox Game Pass has surpassed 25 million subscribers.
"The fantastic franchises across Activision Blizzard will also accelerate our plans for Cloud Gaming, allowing more people in more places around the world to participate in the Xbox community using phones, tablets, laptops and other devices you already own," added Spencer. "Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward."
"As a company, Microsoft is committed to our journey for inclusion in every aspect of gaming, among both employees and players. We deeply value individual studio cultures. We also believe that creative success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating every person with dignity and respect. We hold all teams, and all leaders, to this commitment. We’re looking forward to extending our culture of proactive inclusion to the great teams across Activision Blizzard.
Around the world, there is no more exciting venue for fun and connection than video games. And there has never been a better time to play than right now. As we extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone, we look forward to welcoming all of our friends at Activision Blizzard to Microsoft Gaming."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I expected Microsoft to make another acquisition but this is well beyond anything anyone expected. At a minimum, the series X|S outselling the 360 is now a shoe in.
In one fell swoop, Microsoft is now the biggest entity in the video games industry, and it is not close. Call of duty is the best selling franchise of all time on any platform, and now microsoft has full control.
If you don’t think they will use this to extract concessions from PlayStation, you are probably mistaken. This could legitimately be a mortal wound for the PlayStation brand
Yes, this is above anything I was thinking.
I thought about SE, Konami even 2K. But not this... This can be really bad for Sony BUT at the same time they have several ways to anwser...
- Buy Square, have their own GP stuff, etc...
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But another very simple thing would be... Let GP comes to Play Station, problem solved!
The thing is, if they want to do that, they have to do it sooner than later cause at some point, Microsoft will not care anymore.
The ball is in Microsoft’s court. They could deal irreparable damage to Sony, or they could find a way to cooperate, or something inbetween. But this “console war” for lack of a better word is completely out of Sony’s hands now.
oh yah, I 100% agree with that. No matter what, Sony is behind now (not in marketshare, but momentum and potential). And that's my point about Sony letting GP on their platform, it may actually be really good for them. But without it, I think they will have to fight a war they cannot win in the longterm... Brand loyalty has its limits...
They can also "merge" with something like EA or Ubisoft. Sony does not have the bank power to buy something that big but merging is actually another way out of this shithole Microsoft is putting them in.
How's Nintendo compare to Sony in that situation? I am aware they have mentioned less interest in this sort of stuff before, but if it was something they were looking to do, could they buy big?
There is absolutely no way Sony and Nintendo can keep up with these acquisitions...
Sony's Market Value is currently at $155 Billion... And they have about $45 Billion in cash/assets they can leverage.
Nintendo's Market Value is currently at $54 Billion with 10 Billion cash/assets it can leverage.
This purchase alone puts it out of Nintendo's financial reach... And would be difficult for Sony's shareholders to stomach and sign off on. (Although still very doable.)
Microsoft used cash. Cash. Rich bastards.
For Microsoft:
- $68 Billion for Activision/Blizzard.
- $7.5 Billion for Bethesda.
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$2.5 Billion for Mojang.
Then you have Double Fine, InXile, Obsidian, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, Playground Games, Ninja Theory which was probably billions in investment as well.
We are probably closing in on $100~ Billion invested in Microsoft's Gaming division all told by now.
Sony and Nintendo need to be extremely strategic... Square Enix might be a candidate for Sony to acquire, but it might be cheaper and more cost-effective to contract work out to them for some big exclusive hitters.
Either way, I want to see "balance" between all three companies as that is when competition is at it's strongest and the consumer benefits the most.
Having Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo become dominant is not a good thing.
Yap, Sony is in a deep hole right now. I actually really hope Apple or Amazon is going to acquire them by now. I think it is the only thing that would keep them alive for next gen.
They just cannot compete by themselves in the long run, and their market share lead is already shrinking and the momentum is 100% on Microsoft side right now. The "we had best exclusives" thing is not going to fly for long.
- Microsoft has more studios/exslusives
- Most powerful console
- Big on PC market
- GamePass
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... And money to basically counter anything Sony would try.
They need help, and not by acquiring but more by being acquired OR merging with another big one.
Maybe you'll hate it, but it is a very probably possibility :)
both Google and Amazon have the wallets to purchase Sony
There are many ways to read it, PS more consoles sold More software sold More profit , Xbox roi that may be a decade away, and that roi being better serviced by keeping the bigger Activision games on PS , it sure is a big benefit for Xbox but it's not a Playstation is doomed scenario either.
3rd biggest, according to their press release.
Yup and that is the reason why they will not face any monopoly complications. They are not the leader.
Lol, playstation ain't going anywhere, and call of duty is on the decline, as are the other franchises.
Some reports are suggesting that Tencent's and Sony's gaming divisions are still bigger. Though Sony's gaming division ranking includes hardware sales, which might be an unfair comparison (especially since this will likely increase Microsoft's gaming hardware sales).
I tend to agree with you that this will move Microsoft past one or the both of them, by the time the dust settles.
Revenues* Don't mix everything :)
Tencent is number one, Sony second, and now Microsoft.
But only in revenue, not the size of the company, value, or even studios/IPs. This will probably shift soon tho.
In any case, Apple is going to buy Sony soon so, Sony will have the tools to stay second for sure after that ;)
Yeah and they said sony was going bust when it launched the ps3 a year after the xbox 360, was $100 more expensive and had a cell processor that was hard to develop with a much inferior online store place. They said sony will get bought out lol, the rest is history.
It is not about what they said, it is about business and math at this point...
Gamers and fanboys saying stuff is one thing... Numbers and math in that case is another one...
You are cute :)
And sony keeps selling more consoles, and game revenue. While microsoft is innovating in game subscription, sony is innovating in game experiences. So this idea that sony playstation will be hurt badly is laughable. I own a series s, so i'm not bending sony over.
ahah :) Of course you are not... Cause you have a Series S :) Makes sense! Please, again this is a business talk...
"Numbers do not lie. Politics, promises, poetry... these are lies. Numbers are as close as we come to the handwriting of God."
WHAT THE F$&K?!?!?!?
I would have rather they spend that on other publishers but this is beyond damn huge... No one can say MS arn't 100% in on GP.
Sarah Bond would be a good new head of Activision along with Mike Ybarra remaining head of Blizzard.
Wow this is massive COD alone is going to bring over a massive amount of people to Xbox. I know so many people who own a PlayStation and really only play COD.
ROFL oh boy this is a big move, like it or not MS means business this gen.
I literally woke up the minute Microsoft announced it to their Twitter. Hope this means bright beginnings for ActiBliz.
This is called "POWER PLAY".... Damn, Xbox truly wants to be king! Such powerfull move, devastating! Huge ! For the First time ever, since x360 days, i think they have Playstation on the ropes with this one!
Game Pass going from 18 million subscribers in the summer to 25 million subscribers now is pretty impressive. 39% growth. Not sure what their target was for that period, but that's pretty good. Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite (campaign) surely helped.
But that includes free trials . How many of thos 25million are month to month subscribers?
Please stop, you're just embarrassing yourself at this point
Who knows? But if the total number keeps going up, presumably some percentage of free trials are converting to full-blown subscriptions.
ofcourse, alot of people get caught like that, and just dont bother cancelling for a number of reasons. Even if they barely use it, the fee is that low, that they forget about. Kind of like the gym memberships. I may still be subsribed to the wwe network and can;t remember if i cancelled, haven't used it in 2 years. But i wonder how many actually go the full 6 months or year, and how man yare just doing the trials or montly to finish the games they're interested in and cancelling.
Perhaps the numbers of Forza Horizon 5 (18 million unique players!) are some indication. It's probably sold pretty well, but I'm sure not nearly that well. And not everyone on Game Pass is playing that game. So I have to believe that Game Pass engagement among those 25 million subscribers is pretty high.
Remember when Microsoft bought Bethesda last year and it was a big deal?
Well, this is like 10 times as huge!
Prepare for a very real console war now people. Things have only just begun.
-SH#T JUST GOT REAL NINJA APPROVED-
10x larger? Sheesh, it's a mere 8x larger. ;)
I wonder if this means they can get rid of Bobby? Well...if nothing else the Youtubers just got their bills paid for the month with the content this creates for them.
The whole damm board of directors need to go.
Very surprising! Good for Microsoft! :D
Yeah but what good is this acquisition if MS is just going to stop making consoles anyway? Ohhhh wait, they're definitely NOT leaving the console division. That's right....
If they make COD exclusive...
Activision used to publish so many quality games outside CoD, that just weren't billion $ blockbusters. In recent years, all Activision cared about were CoD/Warzone.
Singularity? Blur? Starcraft? Skylanders? Prototype? Now Toys for Bobs and all other developers have a chance to be something else besides Warzone support studio! The Game Pass model is perfect for all of those to return! Promising news!
Almost bought Diablo 2 when it was on sale, guess I'll just wait for it to hit gamepass now.
Don't care for other franchises but Crash and Spyro should be on playstation.
Hey guys, it could be worse. If Nintendo bought Acti-Blizz, we'd all be seeing people fearing for the future of Widowmaker's butt and COD's guns. (S)
....I won't lie, I would kind of like seeing that freak out.
Phil Spencer in a previous article about Activison "We have changed how we do certain things with them, and they’re aware of that."
They certainty have changed how they do things with them.
Sad day for the video game industry and more broadly for society. So basically Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple just need to buy everything in a sector to kill competitors, not because they are particularly innovative in the sector they target but because they have huge revenues from the dominant position on other sectors.
This is affecting innovation and our Economy in so many sectors and people are just happy about that.
Can't say I disagree with this, but sadly no one is doing anything to stop it. Eventually everything will be owned by a few mega companies, again sadly.
Ah yes, a sad day in which this paragon of videogame innovation has been bought out. Now they won't have the creative freedom to move Toys For Bob into CoD: Warzone right after Crash 4
You really think that this is just about Activision and doesn't have huge ramifications for the entire industry from Sony, Nintendo to other editors, consumers, etc. It actually goes way further than the video game industry and is a trend that is affecting us every day.
People in this sector just rejoice because they tend to be unable to formulate against critic to their favorite brand/company.
I get what you're saying, this is just a continuation of the same corporate mergers that got us here in the first place. It sucks because a lot of those 68.7 billion probably might have not come from videogame related incomes, which means in this case the company that has less of its earning pie come from games gets to spend the most on it, but that's kind of a broader consequence of capitalism.
But beyond that, looking at a case by case basis, Activision is in one of its lowest spots in terms of public image and internal strife while still having all the dozens of IPs and studios within it, so this kind of acquisition was bound to happen. With the timing, it will be seen as Microsoft "saving" Activision, and with their current situation there might even be some truth to it.
lol what are you talking about? COD is massive game no one sees this as MS saving Activision what a crazy thing to say. Sure the company is at a low point right now publicly but financially they are doing just fine.
I know it isn't the case but I really wouldn't be surprised if it was perceived that way by some. With how frequently they were in the news after the lawsuits I'd expect some to forget that like 98% of their sales come from people that don't know or care about that and that their games still sell like crazy
Of course you’re right to consider these things. There’s still going to be regulatory bodies looking over this to check it’s not a huge anti-competition problem.
The small bright spot for some people will be that if this purchase isn’t blocked there will be many workers at ActivisionBlizzard who get the chance to work within a better safer workplace culture.
US Regulatory bodies have been unable/unwilling to adapt to the predatory behavior of big tech, especially if it is US companies. They are barely waking up and starting to act. It looks more and more like in every industry Big tech can just come to buy everything and develop temporary unsustainable models (made possible by revenues of other sectors where most competition is already "dead") to kill competition.
Playstation has been doing so many "timed exclusives" lately, sometimes makes the games tank just so they can have it first and they love to stick it in other companies faces. If Sony had the money to buy such companies, they DEF would. Xbox has to do something to no lose momentum again and they have the money, why not. Activision/Blizzard was in a SHITTY position. I'm so glad they will have new leaders cause the motto that company had was awful. Idc if it's MS or Sony that buys it, just glad anyone did.
What you're describing is not even half as bad (doesn't mean it's good) because Sony/Nintendo aren't Apple/Microsoft/Facebook/Amazon/Google and because timed exclusives is not really comparable to buying one of the biggest company in the sector. Plus if Sony (or any other foreign company) acted the way US big tech acts on so many sectors Americans would go bat shit crazy and regulators would have acted a long time ago.
Sony purchases Square Enix, Microsoft purchases EA, see the trend? hope this stops now. who knows Microsoft can whip out the check book and offer nintendo 25% over their value. please stoppppppppppppppp!!!
Nintendo literally laughed their asses off in Microsofts face when they offered to buy them out when the original Xbox was first coming out. Nintendo would never allow anyone to buy them.
As far as I know, there is no single private entity with control of Nintendo. That means the market decides if someone can purchase Nintendo. It's not up to management. People own stock to make money. So, Microsoft can certainly throw enough money at them to make the sale happen, If they think it's the right move.
There's no single private entity with controlling interest in Activision, either. Bobby Kotick is the single-largest shareholder, and he owns a mere 0.56% of the company!
I'm no expert, but I believe that there are provisions with publicly-traded companies to withdraw all the public shares and pay out all the shareholders should certain conditions be met. Perhaps that's what has happened in the case of Activision, or perhaps Microsoft is merely assuming the premium they have offered over the share price will be enough to attract a majority of the shares to be tendered to them. Perhaps someone more expert in these matters than me can weigh in?
Bobby isn;t the largest shareholder. It's Brian smith, the chairman of the board,. This guy has always had more power than bobby , and sadly he got n ocriticism while bobby got all the hate. I'd say Brian is more responsible for all the mess that goes on there.
I did a web search for Activision shareholders, and Kotick topped the list. shrug
Really? i checked it around the time when the sexual accusations first came to light, and Brian was infront by a few percent. Either way these 2 are buddies that go way back, even back when other sexual accusations took place. They're all bad eggs.
not true, make a big enough offer and shareholders will sell!
Microsoft had yet to release their first console when Nintendo laughed their asses off. They laughed in part because the company that made Windows and Office, and whose traditional gaming ambitions were Flight Simulator and Age of Empires, was proposing to buy them.
Microsoft has changed, and Nintendo has changed, in that time. So I don't think they'd be laughing now.
Additionally, Xbox and Switch could actually live together in relative peace I suspect. As opposed to Xbox and GameCube, for example.
Microsoft flexing their mu$cle
Well ain't that interesting, and I'm not sure what to think about this. On one hand, market consolidation is bad for competition and the gamers (exclusives aren't n ice). On the other hand, Activision was pretty awful anyway, so I can't really see this hurting from that perspective. I'm especially curious about what might become of Activision's own launchers/clients on PC and if this might end up in getting rid of them.
Overall, this seems quite bad, but Activision Blizzard as a company will probably improve as a result.
What the actual fuck? This is the last thing I expected when waking up this morning.
I know the market is consolidating... But almost $70 billion smackos is a fairly substantive chunk of the market itself.
No secret that Blizzard makes some of my favorite games with StarCraft, Diablo and Overwatch... So they have locked me in as a gamer. (For better or worst.)
Microsoft has officially become an exclusive powerhouse if they leverage these I.P's appropriately...
All those years of "Xbox has no exclusives" from certain demographics was taken a little too seriously...
I knew there was a buying spree going on, but DAMN...
And the bane continues…
MS once again taking established franchises away from PS players... WOO! Seems to be their goal whereas both their competitors don't have to take the same tactics and still sell better
Final Fantasy 16... Does not come on Xbox last time I checked and the same for many exclusives Sony bought. I'm not sure in what world you live where "competitors" are not doing the same but it is a different one than the real world...
At this point, I would agree that Microsoft is going nuts about it compared to Sony tho, but saying that competitors do not do that is laughable :)
MS is taking it to another level but it is what it is. This is gaming and I feel for people who don't have the money to enter any ecosystem they want. I used to be there myself and it sucked when the other company released something you really wanted. All I can say to everyone out there is work hard and put yourself in a position where it doesn't matter where your favorite game is released you'll be ready.
Quite different timed exclusives to potential full franchise exclusives. Also Sony doesn't own SE so they can do what they wish, not the same for Bethesda/Activision
People whinged that Xbox had no exclusives, had no games... That they were just the Halo/Gears/Forza box. For years.
Not something you can criticize them for anymore I am afraid.
Spiderman and Wolverine say hi.
I don't recall those games ever being announced for another console... slightly different lol
They took 3rd party IPs and made them exclusive. Its no different.
True but these games were never on XB, would be slightly different if the first Spider-man was on the XBONE then Sony bought the dev and made the 2nd game exclusive. Not the case.
Xbox had Spiderman games before Sony made the new game exclusive.
Slightly different taking a dead franchise and making it popular again, via a great 1st party dev, than buying a publisher and making all of their devs games exclusive. Especially when prior ones in game series were multiplatform - surely you recognise the difference? If not then I think we are done lol
It's the same thing, different scales but same method.
You obviously weren't around during the PS2 era lol.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Did not see that coming.
man WTF!!!
This is absolutely insane. Sony cannot compete with Microsoft's acquisitions. The Zenimax acquisition alone stopped me from buying a PS5. Looks like it's time for me to get a gaming pc and sub to gamepass!
just missing Ubisoft and EA now, Phil.
You just posted that in the thread too. In which world are you living where you have only those 2 publishers :) There are plenty of others...
oh god, did I say there are only these 2 publishers in the world??
just saying... take a look at "PlayStation Store's Most Downloaded Games of 2021" and see how these publishers are important for this console, for example.
Xbox still playing ketchup to Sony...
They are really desperate.
JMFC!
Microsoft is truly the Borg of gaming. I said this when they bought Bethesda, but once again they continue to, instead of innovating and creating their own content, throwing money at the console war instead of actually bringing anything to the table and keeping games away from competitors as an artificial way to bolster their lackluster library of exclusive franchises. I don't know why anyone would want this. This doesn't mean anything new or innovative, it just means whatever would've already existed might only be on Xbox. Cringe.
If it were almost any other big publisher, I'd agree. But Activision is terrible at letting beloved IPs languish, and they desperately need a management shake-up given all the scandals and law-suits. So I'm cautiously optimistic that Microsoft can do better with Activision than Activision can do with Activision.
To the degree that Microsoft does what they've so far done with Bethesda (existing titles and classic IPs continue to be multi-platform), then that's additional reason to think that this may not be a bad thing.
I hope you guys don't see that as a positive move. To be honest, in return I hope now that Nintendo and Sony are taking away lots from Microsoft. If you want their exclusives - you have to buy their consoles, period! It was always like that and I think it's good if it is like that, it fosters competition!
I do eagerly await to see Nintendo buy, say, Atlus or Capcom and everyone expecting Persona and Street Fighter to no longer have boobs.
Gamepass is the future of gaming.
They got ripped off.
It is
