The deal was announced early last year.
The deal between Activision Blizzard and Microsoft is finally closed. Microsoft Gaming and Xbox head Phil Spencer announced that Activision is now part of Xbox Game Studios.
The deal was announced back in January 2022, but it was not closed in the original time frame. Sony actively interfered with this, and the British regulator was also against it at first. However, Microsoft managed to solve all the problems and close the deal.
Call of Duty and Diablo are now owned by Microsoft.
Let’s remember that the purchase of Activision Blizzard cost Microsoft a very impressive 68.7 billion dollars, which made this deal the largest in the video game industry, and it will likely remain so for a very long time. It’s also Microsoft’s biggest acquisition yet, which is quite curious considering it’s not primarily a gaming company.
Together with Activision Blizzard, all franchises of the first company were transferred to Microsoft. These are Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Candy Crush, and much more. Of course, first of all, this is the Call of Duty series, which brings a lot of money to its creators. To appease regulators, Microsoft had to enter into deals with several companies that meant that Call of Duty games would be released on other people’s platforms for the next 10 years.
It’s important to note that now that the deal is complete, don’t expect every Activision Blizzard game to be included in Game Pass right away. This would especially appeal to active Call of Duty players. However, in the foreseeable future, the company’s games will begin to be included in the subscription service, although there are no details on this yet. At a minimum, Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo IV will not appear there until the end of this year.
