Microsoft closes the purchase of Activision in the most ambitious commercial move in the history of video games

2023-10-13 16:01:51

Microsoft You no longer have obstacles to close the purchase of Activision Blizzard. The Xbox parent company, as announced nearly 20 months ago, has paid close to $69 billion for the company behind sagas such as Call of Duty or World of Warcraft or Diablo. To achieve this, it has had to overcome the regulatory obstacles that the acquisition had encountered in the United States and the United Kingdom.

«We love games. We play games, we create games, and we know firsthand how much games mean to all of us as individuals and collectively, as a community. And today we officially welcome Activision Blizzard and its teams to Xbox,” has stated Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s video game division, in the statement announcing the acquisition and which has been sent by the company to ABC.

“As one team, we will learn, innovate, and continue to deliver on our promise to bring the joy and community of gaming to more people. “We will do this in a culture that strives to empower everyone to do their best work, where all people are welcome, and focuses on our continued commitment to Games for All,” the executive concluded.

Today is a good day to play. We officially welcome Activision Blizzard King to Team Xbox. Together, we’ll create stories and experiences that bring players together, in a culture empowering everyone to do their best work and celebrate diverse perspectives. https://t.co/jTHOeH48Wx

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) October 13, 2023

The acquisition is the most important in the history of video games. Or, at least, the most ambitious. Never has a company paid so much money to acquire a development company. The 69 billion in which the agreement is closed far exceeds the purchase of Bethesda (Skyrim, Fallout or Doom), for which Microsoft agreed to pay about 7.5 billion dollars in 2020.

It is also the largest disbursement that Microsoft makes in exchange for another company. Leaving far behind the $26 billion that the technology company paid for LinkedIn in 2016.

All for streaming

With the purchase of Activision, Xbox hopes to gain ground in the video game market. The addition of this firm allows the company to occupy third place globally in business volume, only behind two large companies such as Tencent or Sony, the parent company of PlayStation. Precisely, this last company put many objections to the closing of the acquisition, arguing before trade and consumer agencies around the world that the deal could place Microsoft in a dominant position compared to the rest.

Microsoft overcame this obstacle last summer when it closed an agreement that guarantees the permanence of Call of Duty games on PlayStation consoles. Not in vain, the popular war franchise is among the most popular among users of the Japanese brand.

With the closing of the agreement, Microsoft seeks to strengthen its subscription service Game Pass. The platform works as a kind of Netflix of video games. Thanks to the payment of about ten euros per month, users have free access to a large catalog of titles, in addition to the releases that arrive on Xbox machines from the same day of release. And, furthermore, without the need for the user to pay a single extra euro to play the complete work as many times as they want. Of course, as long as you pay the monthly fee religiously.

For years, the company has been more focused on improving the results of its streaming gaming service than on selling consoles or physical titles. Xbox hasn’t even shared official updates on machine sales for years. Most of the company’s efforts are aimed specifically at increasing the number of paying users. Currently it is estimated that it has about 25 million subscribers.

With the closing of the Activision purchase, Game Pass is expected to receive a good handful of titles billed by the company. More wood with which Microsoft hopes its video game business will continue to grow. And everything indicates that this will be the case, given that Game Pass is perfectly functional on all types of devices, such as smartphones, tablets or even Meta’s virtual reality glasses, the Quest.