Microsoft Announces Its Plan to Acquire Activision Blizzard

Microsoft announced in January 2022 that it planned to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal would place franchises such as Call of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, and Candy Crush under the same company that operated Xbox and Game Pass.

The acquisition was largely a platform strategy. Subscription gaming depends on a large catalog, while cloud gaming depends on the legal right to stream desirable games from remote servers. Owning major publishers gives a platform holder more control over both.

Regulators focused on whether Microsoft could disadvantage rival consoles or cloud services by restricting access to important titles. The transaction eventually closed in October 2023 after extensive regulatory challenges, showing how software content can become infrastructure in platform competition.