Microsoft Acquires Activision Blizzard

After a leaked rumor today Microsoft broke the news, the company now owns Activision Blizzard.

This is a monumental acquisition, even bigger than Microsoft acquiring Zenimax Media, Bethesda, for 7.5 billion. The companies will operate independently for now until the deal is closed. But once it does this means that Microsoft now owns Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft!

Call of Duty alone is a billion-dollar property and given that Bethesda's upcoming Starfield is not coming to PlayStation what the future holds for Activision Blizzard IPs is left in the air.

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. Activision Blizzard games are enjoyed on a variety of platforms and we plan to continue to support those communities moving forward.

As for Game Pass owners, expect the library of Activision Blizzard games to make it to the service. The deal itself will cost Microsoft $70 billion.

Update:

In a recent interview, Microsoft's Phil Spencer stated they have no plans to pull communities away from the platform:

“I’ll just say to players out there who are playing Activision Blizzard games on Sony’s platform: It’s not our intent to pull communities away from that platform and we remained committed to that,” Spencer said in an interview.

Adam Siddiqui,
Managing Editor, NoobFeed