Microsoft completes its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King

Microsoft is shaking up the structure and leadership of its Xbox gaming and marketing divisions shortly after its record-breaking $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Matt Booty was promoted to president of game content and studios, which will oversee ZeniMax and Bethesda. Likewise, Sarah Bond will now serve as president of Xbox.  Her responsibilities will include overseeing Xbox’s platform and hardware strategy. Finally, Chris Capossela, chief marketing officer, has stepped down after 32 years at Microsoft.

«The amount of franchises that we now have in our portfolio is kind of inspiring; it's daunting.»

Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard surely hit its fair share of roadblocks in the approval process, but at long last, the deal was formally closed last week, with Microsoft officially welcoming Activision Blizzard King to Xbox. A deal of this magnitude is obviously going to have a significant impact on the industry for years to come, but where the immediate future is concerned, many will be hoping to see games in the Activision Blizzard back catalog being added to the Game Pass catalog.

US tech giant Microsoft has completed its acquisition of games giant Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft has completed their vast $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, less than half a day after the UK Competition Markets Authority (CMA) gave their approval to a revised package of concessions.

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft today finally completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King after 21 months of prep work and grappling with regulatory bodies. The $69 billion deal sees several of gaming’s most lucrative franchises come under the Microsoft/Xbox umbrella, including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, etc. However, this begs the question: Now that the whole rigmarole of acquisition is done, what happens for Activision Blizzard now?

It’s been a long time coming, but after the FTC’s failed attempt to stop the acquisition it was just a matter of time, and after Microsoft agreed to license out it’s cloud divion, the British CMA have finally given the green light, mere hours later, Xbox closed the deal and Activision, Blizzard and King are now part of the Xbox family.

After nearly two years since the initial announcement, Microsoft has finally and officially acquired Activision Blizzard for a colossal $69 billion. This means that Activision Blizzard, which is the company behind franchises like Call of Duty and Diablo, is now part of Xbox's first-party umbrella. As a result, Xbox's stable of IPs and game franchises has become much larger, welcoming the likes of Overwatch, World of Warcraft, and more. 

It has been an exceptionally eventful day over at Activision Blizzard’s slice of the gaming world. In an email to staff, Bobby Kotick revealed that he is stepping down as CEO of Activision Blizzard after 32 years of leading the company. This news comes following the announcement that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is complete.

It was a long battle for Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard. The video game industry had been watching this deal closely ever since Microsoft made the bid to merge the company under the Microsoft brand for an astonishing $68 billion. This deal brought massive numbers, but it wasn’t a smooth process. The regulators in various markets had to cover this deal closely, with the CMA being the last to give their approval. We knew that approval was coming in a matter of days as we entered this month. The approval was given today, and now we’re seeing the reactions.

Following confirmation of Microsoft’s buyout of Activision Blizzard, controversial CEO Bobby Kotick has confirmed he will remain boss of the Call of Duty maker only until the end of 2023.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has given players on rival consoles, most notably PS5, some reassuring words about future exclusivity, or lack thereof.