Following the industry-shattering news that Microsoft intends to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion, Head of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer appeared alongside current Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick in an interview with CNBC.
During the conversation, Spencer didn’t shy away from confirming that this deal happened ‘pretty quickly’.
Indeed, while the deal might seem to be valuing Activision Blizzard at a significant premium of $95 per share, it’s actually lower than the company’s share high of $100+ reached less than a year ago. Then, of course, the publisher was hit by a series of scandals, lawsuits, and controversies that inevitably affected the share price as well.
This is likely why Spencer and the Microsoft leadership approached Kotick in late 2021. It was a window of opportunity that they deemed too good to pass up in their bid to increase the content pipeline for Game Pass (which has now surpassed 25 million subscribers) and their reach towards mobile with the likes of King (the makers of Candy Crush, acquired by Activision Blizzard back in late 2015).
Of course, with any acquisition of this size, there are always regulatory concerns. This would be Microsoft’s largest acquisition to date, with the company set to spend almost three times as much as it did for LinkedIn.
When a CNBC analyst prodded Spencer about the issue, the Head of Microsoft Gaming highlighted the competitiveness of the gaming industry.
The deal will undoubtedly face regulatory scrutiny, but even after the acquisition, Microsoft would still be behind Tencent and Sony in gaming revenue. Still, we’ll be following up with any updates on the biggest deal in the history of gaming - stay tuned.
