Microsoft To Buy Activision Blizzard For USD 69 Billion

Microsoft has agreed to buy Activision Blizzard, game development and interactive entertainment content publisher. The deal will be a cash-basis transaction at $68.7 billion.

The deal will make Microsoft the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind China’s Tencent Holdings and Japan’s Sony Group.

The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from Activision, Blizzard, and King studios like “Warcraft,” “Diablo,” “Overwatch,” “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush,” in addition to global eSports activities through Major League Gaming.

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“Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft.

“We’re investing deeply in world-class content, community, and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive, and accessible to all.”

Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has slowly but steadily expanded its holdings, adding to its stable of first-party developers. The acquisitions in the late teens combined with the purchase of Bethesda last year made Microsoft a many-armed behemoth in the gaming industry, surpassed only by Sony and Tencent.

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