Image: Xbox
Xbox now owns franchises like Call of Duty, Warcraft, Overwatch and so much more following a historic $68.7 billion deal.
Microsoft has made it official: Xbox Game Studios now owns Activision Blizzard, the games publishing giant behind hit game franchises like Call of Duty, Diablo, Warcraft and Candy Crush. Microsoft finally sealed the deal on its $68.7 billion acquisition of the publisher this week, a long 21 months after it was first announced.
Weirdly enough, the acquisition comes complete with a trailer:
How did this happen?
The $68.7 billion deal is now the biggest of its kind in the history of gaming acquisitions, first announced all the way back in January 2022. It took 21 months for Microsoft to seal the deal, mostly due to global regulators like the FTC pushing back against the deal in court cases and various hearings. Sony attempted to stop the deal from going through as well, protesting that Xbox gaining exclusivity to the Call of Duty franchise would give it a significant edge in the games industry.
The final obstacle Microsoft had to clear was the U.K’s Competition and Markets Authority, who attempted to block the deal on the grounds that it would give Xbox an unfair advantage in the cloud gaming market. To circumvent this, Microsoft simply gave Ubisoft the rights to stream Activision Blizzard’s games on the cloud, thereby allowing the UK regulator to approve the deal. And thus, history was made - for better or worse.
The future of Xbox
Thanks to Sony’s lobbying, Xbox has signed a deal to keep Call of Duty non-exclusive for the next 10 years. A small price to pay for an acquisition that now allows Xbox access to Activision’s Spyro, Call of Duty and Crash Bandicoot, Blizzard’s StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch, and King’s Candy Crush among many, many others. This deal also allows Microsoft to bring all of these games - past and future - to Xbox Game Pass, with more details to come over the next few months. It’s safe to say that popular Blizzard games like Diablo 4 will be the first to hit the service.
Xbox Game Studios head Phil Spencer confirmed that Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick will stay on in his current role until the end of 2023, at which point he will leave the company altogether. On the future of Xbox, Spencer stated:
Players have always been at the center of everything we do. And as we grow, we’ll continue to keep players at the heart of it all. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback, build a community where you can be yourself, where developers can do their best work, and continue to make really fun games. As promised, we will also continue to make more games available in more places – and that begins now by enabling cloud streaming providers and players to stream Activision Blizzard games in the European Economic Area, a commitment made to the European Commission. Today we start the work to bring beloved Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms. We’ll share more about when you can expect to play in the coming months. We know you’re excited – and we are too.