Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard for almost $70B

[BenG]

"Microsoft is to pay almost $70bn to buy Activision Blizzard, the publisher of mega franchises including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, in the biggest ever takeover in the tech and gaming sectors.

Microsoft said that the $68.7bn (£50.6bn) all-cash deal – which dwarfs its previous biggest, the $26bn takeover of LinkedIn in 2016 – will “provide the building blocks for the metaverse”. It is the biggest deal in tech history, eclipsing the $67bn paid by Dell to buy the digital storage giant EMC in 2015.

The deal will see the Xbox maker become the world’s third-biggest gaming company by revenue behind China’s Tencent and Japan’s Sony, maker of PlayStation games consoles."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/18/microsoft-buy-call-of-duty-activision-blizzard-world-of-warcraft

[Dean Judaster]

I've been waiting for WC4 for the longest time, and their recent allegations have soured me off Act/Blizz.

[BenG]

On 1/18/2022 at 4:32 PM, Nightwing said:

Can these corporations just stop with all this metaverse sh!t. It’s not going to be a thing consumers want. I hope they realize they wasted their money and it flops to oblivion.

To be fair, the gaming industry is bigger than the film and the music industries combined

Meanwhile... Apple: Arcade

[NotDoctor PronounsHe/they]

Would be really nice if this country even pretended we cared about anti-trust.  This major media consolidations are terrible for the industry.

The one upside I can see, is that the management at ABK is so f-ing awful and treats their employees like sh!t (on top of rampant sexual harassment/abuse), so axing them will be a great step forward.  I’m hopeful that the acquisition won’t halt the burgeoning ABK labor movement either

On 1/18/2022 at 11:32 AM, Nightwing said:

Can these corporations just stop with all this metaverse sh!t. It’s not going to be a thing consumers want. I hope they realize they wasted their money and it flops to oblivion.

This has nothing to do with the metaverse, just some dipshit marketing person who thinks dropping big keywords will get them SEO clicks and make investors happy. Metaverse is completely meaningless 

Edited January 18, 2022 by NotDoctor