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Microsoft makes a big splash in 2022 by purchasing game publishing company, Activision Blizzard. A huge change in video games as it leaves popular games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush, Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Guitar Hero and others if they’ll be exclusive to the Xbox and PC. The purchase comes in at a whopping $68.7 billion, all-cash deal.
On why the purchase, Microsoft’s explains the deal is a long-term plan for the tech company to compete with Meta (Facebook) on creating a virtual world called the metaverse. Microsoft doesn’t have a virtual reality (VR) headset yet but don’t be surprise one to come in the near future. Last year in early March, Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Software for $7.5 billion. Microsoft’s last big spending was back in 2016 when the tech company purchase LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. The Activision Blizzard deal makes the Bethesda purchase like chump change but comes with many headaches.
For the past few months, Activision Blizzard faced many cultural problems within the company. Sexual harassments and misconduct among company executives. The company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, has been called out to resign. With this deal, Bobby Kotick will remain CEO during the transition. Instead, Activision Blizzard will report to Phil Spencer, executive vice-president of Gaming at Microsoft when the deal closes. However, after the deal closes in its fiscal 2023 year, Boddy Kotick could potentially depart afterwards.
As for the lump of issues Microsoft has gained from acquiring the video game company, Microsoft will have its hands full to sort things out and hopefully makes this correct for everyone.
What should we expect Microsoft to purchase next? Sega? Ubisoft?
