In an announcement that has rocked the gaming industry, Microsoft has announced it plans to acquire Activision Blizzard. In an announcement posted to the Xbox Wire, Phil Spencer(CEO at Microsoft Gaming) confirmed the seismic news in a deal that’s worth an eye-watering $68.7 billion. Microsoft will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share, in an all-cash transaction, inclusive of Activision Blizzard’s net cash That’s almost 10x more than Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda in 2021, for what it’s worth.
Once the deal goes through, Microsoft will own the IP for Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft and many, many more going forward. Who knew that’d we’d all live to see the day that Crash Bandicoot would become an Xbox mascot. Wild.
The deal is not finalised yet, and there’s no word on when it’ll be all tied up. “Until this transaction closes, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming will continue to operate independently,” Spencer notes in the press release. “Once the deal is complete, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me as CEO, Microsoft Gaming.”