Whether you’re an avid gamer, casual player, or have never touched a controller in your life, chances are you have heard about Call Of Duty. Many big name artists and athletes are fans of the franchise, and for good reason. The Call Of Duty franchise has been around for a relatively long while, and has a strongly dedicated player base with multiple iterations under its belt. The first Call Of Duty game was published by Activision nearly 20 years ago, which grew and developed into a game series that has undoubtedly stood the test of time. Now Microsoft will have another money maker amongst their ranks after purchasing Activision Blizzard, effectively making Call Of Duty one of their own.
Microsoft is more than happy to be making such a groundshaking purchase. In an official statement, they stated that “it is incredibly exciting to announce that Microsoft has agreed to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Over many decades, the studios and teams that make up Activision Blizzard have earned vast wellsprings of joy and respect from billions of people all over the world. We are incredibly excited to have the chance to work with the amazing, talented, dedicated people across Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, Beenox, Demonware, Digital Legends, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Major League Gaming, Radical Entertainment, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob, Treyarch and every team across Activision Blizzard.”
Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard is huge news and impacts the entire gaming community. Considering that Microsoft owns XBox, the extremely high-selling and respected game series Call Of Duty now has the potential to become an XBox exclusive. By doing so, any revenue that their main competitor Sony would have received from future Call Of Duty releases will disappear. This is a massive hit to Sony, especially because every Call Of Duty release enters the conversation for highest sales in any given year. PlayStation tends to thrive off its own exclusives, but this development evens the playing field a bit (if it comes to pass).
Powerhouse publishers like Activision Blizzard don’t come cheap, though. Microsoft is coughing up nearly $70 billion to get a hold of it, but they will most definitely be getting a ton of bang for their buck. Activision Blizzard also publishes other big hitters such as Candy Crush, a favorite of moms worldwide, and World Of Warcraf.
We’ll see how this Microsoft mega-move plays out over the rest of 2022.
[Via]