What you want to know
- Microsoft has created a devoted webpage for its ongoing Activision Blizzard acquisition for $68.7 billion.
- The website supplies updates, quotes, and charts associated to the deal.
- The European Fee has a deadline to approve the acquisition or launch a additional investigation into the deal by Nov. 8.
Microsoft has devoted a part of the corporate’s website solely on details about its upcoming Activision Blizzard acquisition and explains why the deal can be helpful to gamers, builders, and the broader gaming trade.
The website (opens in new tab) incorporates a assortment of updates from the corporate concerning the acquisition, quotes from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer and Vice Chair and President Brad Smith, charts detailing the historical past of gaming income and the market, and a desk itemizing the advantages of the acquisition.
Microsoft says the deal would profit gamers by way of “extra video games on extra gadgets together with Xbox, PlayStation, telephones, and on-line,” and extra options on how video games are bought and accessed. The corporate additionally argues it might profit sport creators with “higher income and honest market guidelines” and “larger flexibility in fee programs,” whereas the sport trade would profit from extra competitors with Sony, Nintendo, and cellular.
The push for Microsoft to publicly inform the Activision Blizzard acquisition in a extra constructive mild comes because the deal is at present beneath examination by the UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) that the deal would cut back competitors, whereas the European Fee has till Nov. 8 to approve the deal or examine additional.
Microsoft had introduced it might purchase Activision Blizzard earlier this yr for $68.7 billion, and faces regulatory opinions in a number of counties. If the deal goes by way of, Microsoft would acquire builders and video games beneath Activision, Blizzard, and King.
That features main franchises akin to World of Warcraft, Sweet Crush, and Name of Obligation. The acquisition of the latter sequence has been disputed by Sony Interactive Leisure CEO Jim Ryan, who known as Microsoft’s settlement to hold Name of Obligation on PlayStation platforms “insufficient.”