Microsoft completes $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Microsoft has just completed the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the maker of the famous Call of Duty game.

In April, Microsoft was blocked from buying Activision Blizzard by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which had concerns about the Xbox maker’s dominance of the cloud gaming market. Microsoft then changed the terms of the deal and will sell its cloud gaming rights outside of Europe to rival Ubisoft. The CMA’s concerns have now been resolved and the regulator has approved the deal.

The acquisition of Activision Blizzard is a way for Microsoft to break into the more than $90 billion mobile gaming market.

CMA confirmed this on October 13. A few hours later, Microsoft announced the completion of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, said the regulator wanted to ensure Microsoft did not “stifle” the cloud gaming market. Cloud gaming allows users to stream video games stored on remote servers to their devices. As cloud gaming grows, regulatory intervention will help people get better prices, services and more choice.

According to the CMA, Microsoft's cloud gaming concessions will allow Ubisoft to offer multi-game subscription services, cloud gaming services that can use non-Windows PCs to run Activision Blizzard content while maintaining competitive pricing. One of the concessions is a 15-year deal with Ubisoft that prevents Activision Blizzard titles from being distributed exclusively on Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service.

Acquiring the gaming company is also a way for Microsoft to break into the $90 billion mobile gaming market, according to Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, who oversees Activision’s business. Activision produces popular titles such as Candy Crush Saga and Call of Duty: Mobile.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/microsoft-hoan-tat-thuong-vu-69-ty-usd-thau-tom-activision-blizzard-246267.html