It’s official! After what seemed to be a never-ending saga, Activision-Blizzard (and King) are finally part of the Xbox team as the closing of the much-anticipated acquisition has been announced.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
First announced back in January of 2022, the nearly 21-month process has faced its fair share of hurdles from the UK Competition and Markets Authority and the FTC. The EU cleared the deal with conditions, Xbox ended up making concessions to the UK CMA by selling the cloud gaming rights portion to Ubisoft, and won in court over the FTC (although the FTC is still planning to appeal last I heard).
Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, took to Xbox Wire to say a few things. He started by welcoming Activision, Blizzard, and King to the fold:
“I’ve long admired the work of Activision, Blizzard, and King, and the impact they’ve had on gaming, entertainment, and pop culture. Whether it was late nights spent playing the Diablo IV campaign with friends from start to finish, gathering the entire family in the rec room for our weekly Guitar Hero night, or going on an epic streak in Candy Crush, some of my most memorable gaming moments came from experiences their studios have created. It is incredible to welcome such legendary teams to Xbox.”
Spencer then continued by re-affirming that gamers are the “center of everything” the company does, and that includes continuing to “make more games available in more places.”
“Players have always been at the center of everything we do. And as we grow, we’ll continue to keep players at the heart of it all. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback, build a community where you can be yourself, where developers can do their best work, and continue to make really fun games. As promised, we will also continue to make more games available in more places – and that begins now by enabling cloud streaming providers and players to stream Activision Blizzard games in the European Economic Area, a commitment made to the European Commission. Today we start the work to bring beloved Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms. We’ll share more about when you can expect to play in the coming months. We know you’re excited – and we are too.”
It will definitely be interesting to see what transpires from here as Xbox now has an even bigger stable of games and franchises they own, including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Candy Crush, and much much more.
What do you think about the Xbox Activision-Blizzard deal finally closing? How long do you think before Call of Duty and other games will be coming to Xbox Game Pass? Let us know on social media by using the buttons below.
