This week, Microsoft disrupted the news week when announcing it will be acquiring Activision Blizzard. That alongside the $68.7 billion price tag that follows the purchase, this will be the largest deal to take place in the video game industry. And that is just one week after Take-Two Interactive made the decision to buy up Zynga for $12 billion at the time. But, answers are missing from the equation many are discovering.

One many following the story are burning to learn is if Xbox’s involvement with the publisher will result in the firing of CEO Bobby Kotich. According to The Wall Street Journal, that is the case upon the deal finishing up this coming financial year in FY23. Additionally, the marketing arrangement that Sony Interactive Entertainment had with Activision will be honored according to the publisher itself.

Even more Head of Xbox Phil Spencer verified the matter. He even went as far as to also solidify Call of Duty to remain a multiplatform release. “Had good calls this week with leaders at Sony. I confirmed our intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard and our desire to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony is an important part of our industry, and we value our relationship.”

From an interview with GamesBeat, Kotich spoke on the matter of the acquisition and what Microsoft is capable to achieve moving forward. He expresses excitement for the energy of the Xbox company in terms of properties that are currently not in the spotlight especially.

You look at all the opportunities that we get with a company like Microsoft. I’ll give you one great example. Phil and I started riffing on things for the future. I’ll give you three that are really compelling. I wanted to make a new Guitar Hero for a while, but I don’t want to add teams to do manufacturing and supply chain and QA for manufacturing. And the chip shortages are enormous.

We didn’t really have the ability to do that. I had a really cool vision for what the next Guitar Hero would be, and realized we don’t have the resources to do that. And Skylanders too. One of the great disappointments of my career is that other people came in and they came out with crappy alternatives.

And they dumped all of these crappy alternatives in the market, and basically destroyed the market for what was a really cool future opportunity. If you look at Skylanders, with its hardware and manufacturing and supply chain, there are the same kinds of things that we can’t do but Microsoft can.

“And in these conversations I was sharing my frustration about not having enough social capability in Candy Crush. I really want to be able to have a Candy Crush experience where players can play games against each other. And they can socialize. And they can have voice over IP and video over IP.

Kotich ends by sharing, “That’s a more social game, but it’s rooted in being able to play the game against another person or other people. There is nothing but opportunity for the kinds of things that we can’t do on our own, and the resources that they have for us to just make a difference.” More interesting is from Spencer when speaking to The Wall Post.

When elaborating on the deal, the Xbox boss acknowledged the library of properties Activision is sitting on. “I was looking at the IP list, I mean, let’s go! King’s Quest,’ ‘Guitar Hero.’ … I should know this but I think they got ‘HeXen.’” He continues by disclosing the potential to work on titles he himself enjoyed as a child and is adamant to speak with studios on titles “from the Activision Blizzard vaults,” best worded by The Washington Post.

What are your thoughts on the potential future of Activision Blizzard being acquired by Microsoft?

Source: GamesBeat, The Washington Post