A recap on the acquisition
A couple of days ago, Microsoft announced to the world that it had acquired Activision Blizzard for a scale-bending $68.7 billion. That’s almost 5.5 times as much money that Take-Two paid for Zynga. With this purchase, Microsoft will own games with a player base of about 400 million monthly users. This news really struck, as, this basically gives Microsoft control over some of the biggest game franchises in the world. These include Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, Candy Crush, and Starcraft. A bit of good news for those who love these games is that Microsoft is planning on putting some of these games on Xbox Game Pass.
But Phil Spencer Wants to keep Call of Duty On PlayStation
One fear that people have about this acquisition is Microsoft taking all of these franchises away from the PlayStation. That would, honestly, be a foolish decision because of how many people play Playstation systems compared to Xbox systems. Even though they would be available on PC, it’d still leave a bad taste in peoples’ mouths. Fortunately, Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft, went to Twitter to assure everyone that Call of Duty will not be leaving the PlayStation platform. In the tweet, he mentioned that he (or maybe a board of executives) was on calls with will leaders at Sony. Spencer said that Microsoft will honor all existing agreements with the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. This means that Call of Duty will not become an Xbox exclusive title.
That’s great, but what about the other titles?
It’s no doubt that Call of Duty is a massively popular title, but it’s not the only major game franchise involved in the deal. The fact that Phil Spencer didn’t mention any of the other franchises might be cause for worry. Right now, it seems that these titles are currently in Limbo. We’re wondering if the other titles will be made Xbox exclusives, if they will be put on Xbox Game Pass, and if Microsoft will make significant changes to them. We’re also wondering if the Department of Justice will even allow this acquisition to exist. The DOJ has been battling with Microsoft for the past two decades over how big it’s gotten. It’s possible that this acquisition constitutes anti-competitive practice.
