Microsoft Has Purchased Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 Billion

[Uncrowned Guard]

The gaming giant Activision Blizzard and its arsenal of top-tier games are coming to Xbox Games as Microsoft has purchased the company and all of its assets.  The maker of Call of Duty, Overwatch, and many more games beloved by gamers is excepted to land on Xbox Game Pass once the dust has settled.

Activision Blizzard has been embattled with its fanbase due to scandals within the company and lawsuits regarding all sorts of activities that are beyond inappropriate.  CEO of Activision Blizzard is Bobby Kotick and he has been surrounded by a PR nightmare as news reports have not only stated that he was aware of the misconduct taking place but allegedly took part in some of the activities directly.

Xbox’s Phil Spencer has been openly against how the scandals were handled, but Microsoft has announced that Bobby Kotick will retain his position as CEO after the merger.  This has been followed up by numerous reports stating that Kotick plans to leave the company after the deal is complete.  Officially, he is still their CEO and Microsoft has publicly announced their support for him to remain as such.

Overall, we do not know the long-term effects of this deal.  Will Call of Duty be an Xbox exclusive?  Will World of Warcraft come to console?  We can base some of these answers on the Microsoft-Bethesda purchase and assume that all their current games will remain as is and continue to support all platforms while new games will release as Xbox Exclusives. 

Call of Duty’s yearly releases and Overwatch 2 fall into “new games” when they release and the fate of these are still unknown.  Most would agree that in the short term, making Call of Duty an Xbox Exclusive would be a poor decision as it remains the world’s top-selling video game each year, and the majority of players are often found on PlayStation.  However, nothing about dropping nearly $70 billion is very “short term” and only the future will tell how things play out.