Microsoft President Now Finds UK’s CMA Was “Tough but Fair” Regarding the Activision Blizzard Deal

With the acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, Microsoft can now be a “good publisher” across all platforms, including rival consoles, the boss of the company has said.

In October 2023, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and by the end of the year, the latter company’s CEO had departed. Now, this will be the year where we’ll see how Activision Blizzard functions when fully integrated into Microsoft. The most immediate change for those who play games will likely be Activision Blizzard titles coming to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s subscription service.

Xbox’s first-party studio lineup in 2017 consisted of five studios and a publishing arm: Rare, Turn 10, 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang Studios, and Xbox Game Studios Publishing. Today, six years later, Microsoft owns more than 50 studios, thanks to various acquisitions over the years.

A former Activision Blizzard executive is suing the company for age discrimination, according to lawsuit filed on Jan. 2. James Reid Venable, a 57-year-old former senior director of business operations, said Activision Blizzard “retaliated and discriminated” against him after he made a discrimination complaint to the company’s human resources department — specifically, Venable believes he was laid off for being old and white.

Diablo IV and Overwatch will soon be available to stream on Nvidia's cloud gaming service, GeForce Now, the company confirmed during its CES 2024 keynote.

Activision-Blizzard has been the centre of a lot of controversy over these past few years. After a lawsuit went public, detailing «numerous complaints about unlawful harassment, discrimination, and retaliation» and a «frat boy» culture, plus claims from former CEO Bobby Kotick that the whole thing was just an «aggressive labour movement,»  the company finally settled last year.

Microsoft Corp. executive Dee Templeton has joined OpenAI's board as a nonvoting observer, according to a person familiar with the matter, as part of a broader boardroom overhaul following the brief ouster of the startup's chief executive officer (CEO) Sam Altman. Templeton has worked at Microsoft for more than 25 years and is the company's vice president for technology and research partnerships and operations, according to her LinkedIn profile. She has already begun attending board meetings, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters. OpenAI and Microsoft declined to comment. 

One constant of the last year's worth of news swirling aroundMicrosoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard was the back-and-forth bickering between the tech giant and the UK's Competition and Markets Authority as the deal headed to a close. Now, Microsoft's Brad Smith seems to have softened his tone a bit regarding the CMA.

 Microsoft president Brad Smith has softened his stance on the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) following the completion of the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft.

Microsoft President Brad Smith has softened his stance on the UK regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, following the Microsoft – Activision deal.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has seemingly walked back on comments criticising the UK over the handling of its Activision Blizzard deal.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has changed his tone somewhat towards UK regulatory body the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), admitting its initial plan to block the company's Activision Blizzard buyout was «tough and fair».