Microsoft plans to buy Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70bn

Post Reply
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8732
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Microsoft plans to buy Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70bn

Post by wjfox »

Microsoft plans to buy Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70bn

By Steffan Powell
Gaming reporter

Published
4 hours ago

Microsoft says it plans to buy major games company Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7bn (£50.57bn).

It would be the biggest acquisition in the company's history and is expected to be finalised in 2023.

The move means Microsoft will take ownership of gaming franchises like Call of Duty, Warcraft and Overwatch.

Microsoft claims it will help them grow their gaming business across mobile, PC and consoles along with providing building blocks for the metaverse.

This deal is the biggest in gaming history and comes a year after Microsoft bought another influential gaming company Bethesda for $7.5bn.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-60042409


Image
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Microsoft plans to buy Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70bn

Post by caltrek »

Why Microsoft's $2 Trillion+ Market Cap Makes Its $68 Billion Activision Buy a Cheap Bet
by Ron Miller
January 19, 2022

https://techcrunch.com/2022/01/19/why-m ... cheap-bet/

Introduction:
(TechCrunch) Even though consumer gaming constitutes a small fraction of its overall business, Microsoft’s announcement yesterday of its all-cash $69 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard proves that the technology corporation takes the sector plenty seriously.

It is easy to think that Microsoft should have invested the money into other, perhaps more lucrative businesses in its portfolio. But with a market cap just over $2 trillion (a number so large it’s hard to wrap your head around), Microsoft has vast resources to invest in the most logical parts of its business.

Even if this $70 billion bet doesn’t pay out, Microsoft will come out on the other side fairly unscathed. That kind of financial power gives a company myriad options, even if it involves making one of the largest acquisitions in tech history.

Let’s not forget that this deal comes on the heels of Microsoft’s acquisition of speech-to-text company Nuance last spring for $20 billion. That deal that is stuck in regulatory limbo in the U.K., which begs the question: Given it size and scope, could regulators end up taking a close look at the Activision Blizzard deal, what could be perceived as a gaming market land grab?

With that in mind, we’re examining this deal’s financial viability to see whether Microsoft might have been better off putting those resources into the enterprise/business side of the house, or if its resources are simply so vast that the company doesn’t have to consider the sort of tradeoffs most companies must make when it comes to an M&A of this magnitude.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
Nanotechandmorefuture
Posts: 478
Joined: Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:15 pm
Location: At the moment Miami, FL

Re: Microsoft plans to buy Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70bn

Post by Nanotechandmorefuture »

Hopefully Mr. Gates turns the company around because recently it has been suffering a bit per the word on Reddit forums. I hear he is a bit of a gamer himself on Reddit so it would be nice if he can improve things for Activision Blizzard!
Post Reply