It would be pretty difficult to hide the fact that the firm that owns Halo and now Fallout, Microsoft, is also attempting to purchase Activision Blizzard. Back in January, the firm announced its plans for an $70 billion acquisition and since then has been met with criticisms of a monopoly forming. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella expressed the claims to be untrue. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer also pressed the deal is to deliver a better experience for the industry.
Additionally, multiple instances verified that established IPs such as Call of Duty & Overwatch would not be exclusive to just Xbox following the acquisition plans being fulfilled. Even going the lengths to honor marketing arrangements with Sony Interactive Entertainment made prior to the arrangement. The Xbox firm even shared support for Activision Blizzard subsidiaries to form unions which has been an outcry from the teams and most of the industry in recent years.
On Friday, a report went out from gamesindustry.biz indicating a new investigation has launched for the Activision Blizzard deal. The root of the probe reveals concerns of severing support for multiplatform franchises to becoming unique to Xbox. In response, Spencer made a press release commenting on the future of these IPs.
We’ve heard that this deal might take franchises like Call of Duty away from the places where people currently play them. That’s why, as we’ve said before, we are committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere. We will continue to enable people to play with each other across platforms and across devices.
We know players benefit from this approach because we’ve done it with Minecraft, which continues to be available on multiple platforms and has expanded to even more since Mojang joined Microsoft in 2014. As we extend our gaming storefront across new devices and platforms, we will make sure that we do so in a manner that protects the ability of developers to choose how to distribute their games.
Spencer goes on to reference Microsoft’s greater vision for its video game division to expand its efforts to other platforms outside of conventional home consoles. “While we love consoles, we recognize that they are not the only way that people play games. Today, the largest and fastest growing segment of gaming is mobile platforms. To reach the billions of players where they are and no matter what device they play on, we need to embrace choice. Giving players choice in how they play their games makes gaming more accessible and leads to larger, more vibrant communities of players.”
Not only that, but Spencer also notes that some Activision Blizzard IPs are solidified for Xbox Game Pass. “We intend to make Activision Blizzard’s much-loved library of games – including Overwatch, Diablo and Call of Duty – available in Game Pass,” he explains. In the past, Spencer showed to be eccentric with the deal when learning of the vault of IPs that Activision Blizzard is not utilizing which could further fuel Xbox Game Pass.
But in a recent interview, Spencer clarifies one of its largest ambitions for the deal is to acquire the mobile & PC gaming ventures already established by Activision Blizzard. With the continued investment into Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft’s desire to reach the billion+ users on mobile is its next major advancement in gaming. You can read the full report by heading here.
What are your thoughts on the response to the acquisition probe?
Source: Microsoft