After nearly two years, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard finally came to fruition.
On the evening of the 13th, Microsoft announced on its official blog Xbox Wire that it had completed its overall acquisition of Activision Blizzard and King.
Microsoft Games CEO Phil Spencer stated in the announcement that he greatly admires Activision Blizzard for its profound impact on gaming, entertainment, and popular culture, and welcomes the "legendary team from Activision Blizzard to join the Xbox team".
In the announcement, Spencer also mentioned that Xbox will start introducing games from Activision Blizzard and King into the subscription service Game Pass starting today. At the same time, he also welcomes PlayStation, Nintendo, PC, and mobile players to share Activision Blizzard and King games with Xbox players.
At the same time, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also posted a letter celebrating the event on his official website, And use "opening a new chapter" to describe this event: "Today is an important milestone in the glorious history of our company. The combination with Microsoft will bring new resources and opportunities to our excellent team worldwide, and we will be able to provide more entertainment, happiness, and connections for more players than ever before
In the letter, Kodak reviewed the development process of Activision Blizzard since 1991 and expressed gratitude to the employees. Kodak also mentioned that he will continue to serve as the CEO of Activision Blizzard until the end of 2023.
The massive ($68.7 billion) merger and acquisition case between Microsoft and Blizzard involves multiple regulatory parties, both parties involved, and other market participants. All parties involved are industry giants with great interests, and the parties have been playing for a long time. The progress of the case has been difficult, and the transaction was on the brink of collapse.
The core reason for opposition from all parties is that after the combination of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, they monopolize the gaming market, curb the survival space of other manufacturers, and affect the healthy development of the industry.
The UK Competition and Market Authority was the last checkpoint in this transaction. Therefore, in order to clear this obstacle, Microsoft made a concession in its latest restructuring transaction plan in August this year - agreeing to transfer the distribution rights of all existing and new games of Activision Blizzard to the French gaming company Game Pass (Ubisoft), a 15 year agreement that applies to all markets except the European Union.
This means that Microsoft will not be able to release exclusive Activision Blizzard games on its cloud streaming service "Xbox Cloud Gaming", nor will it be able to control the license terms of these games in competitor services. Ubisoft can directly provide cloud game versions of Activision Blizzard products to all consumers and cloud game service providers.
At present, Activision Blizzard's stock has been suspended from trading. As of the close of the US stock market on Friday, Microsoft's stock price fell 1.04% to close at $327.73 per share.