Microsoft revealed it will purchase Activision Blizzard, the game studio behind several popular franchises, in a record-breaking $68.7 billion all-cash deal. Activision Blizzard has recently been engulfed in controversy.
The deal shatters the previous industry record set just last week when Take Two offered Zynga $12.7 billion for their acquisition. Microsoft’s announcement has seen shares of Activision soar some 37%, but Microsoft’s own shares have fallen more than 2% after the announcement.
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If the deal goes through, Microsoft would become the third-largest gaming company in the world, behind China’s Tencent and Japan’s Sony. Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, detailed their interest in acquiring Activision Blizzard as being excited to invest in an industry set to play a big role in the future metaverse.
“Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” she said in a statement. “We’re investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all.”