microsoft have Completed $69 billion acquisition video game publisher activision blizzardaccording to, Regulatory filing from the company on Friday. The deal is Microsoft’s biggest in its 48-year history and comes after the company overcame competition concerns from UK and European regulators and secured a favorable ruling from a US district judge.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority agreed to the deal early Friday, paving the way for closing.
The deal, announced in January 2022, gives Microsoft a vast portfolio of video game franchises including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, Tony Hawk Pro Skater, and Warcraft. I will get it. The game developer made $7.5 billion in revenue. Latest fiscal yearThat’s just a fraction of the $212 billion in revenue that Microsoft reeled in.
“Today, we begin work to bring popular Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms,” said Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming. mentioned in a blog post. “We’ll have more information about when you can play in the coming months.”
Microsoft Corp. CEO Satya Nadella at the company’s “Ignite Spotlight” event held in Seoul on November 15, 2022.
Cho Sung Joon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said: remain CEO until the end of the year.
Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, who took over in 2014, aims to diversify the company’s business beyond core areas such as operating systems and productivity software. Activision is both a partner and a competitor of Microsoft. The company is one of the few large companies that releases popular games that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.
The acquisition was delayed due to opposition from regulators. When Microsoft announced the deal in January 2022, it said it expected to close by the end of June 2023. In July, the two companies agreed to extend the deadline until October 18th.
The US Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority all objected to the deal.
Microsoft made concessions to appease European regulators. The company has agreed to provide free licenses to stream his Activision Blizzard games to consumers in the European Economic Area, and has also agreed to provide his streaming provider with a free license to stream his Activision Blizzard games so that gamers in Europe can play the games through the cloud. has also agreed to provide a free license.
Microsoft has struck deals with console rivals Nintendo and Sony, promising access to Call of Duty games for 10 years. And Microsoft has made similar deals with cloud gaming providers, including Boosteroid. NvidiaNware and Ubitus.
In July, the FTC asked the U.S. District Court in San Francisco for a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft and Activision from entering into a deal without receiving full approval. But after a five-day hearing, the judge sided with the two companies. The agency took the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which denied a motion to temporarily halt the closing of the deal.
Satisfying British officials was more complicated. Microsoft announced in August that if the deal goes through, game publisher Ubisoft would receive cloud streaming rights to Activision’s games for 15 years.
The FTC said Friday it remains concerned.
“Even though Microsoft and Activision have entered into a deal ahead of an appellate court hearing scheduled for December, we remain focused on the federal appellate process,” FTC spokeswoman Victoria Graham said in a statement. said. “Microsoft’s new agreements with Activision and Ubisoft present an entirely new dimension to mergers that impact U.S. consumers, and the FTC will evaluate it as part of ongoing administrative proceedings. The FTC continues to believe that this agreement poses a threat to competition.”
Activision has ended Second quarter Revenue was $2.2 billion and net income was $587 million, an increase of 34% from the same period last year.
clock: Microsoft and Activision Blizzard deal set to clear final hurdle
Correction: Microsoft agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard over 20 months ago. Previous versions incorrectly listed the time period.
