In a new interview with Bloomberg, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said that he feels “very confident” that the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard will be approved. This comes after the deal continues to be heavily scrutinized by regulatory bodies all around the world.
Microsoft shook the entire internet earlier this year when the company announced that it had agreed to acquire Activision-Blizzard for an eye-watering sum of almost $70 billion USD. The deal has yet to be finalized though, as various worldwide regulatory bodies must ensure that the acquisition does not turn Microsoft into a monopoly.
The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority confirmed earlier this month that they would be extending their review into the acquisition, but this doesn’t seem to have concerned Microsoft’s CEO. “Of course, any acquisition of this size will go through scrutiny, but we feel very, very confident that we’ll come out”, Nadella told Bloomberg in a recent interview.
Earlier this month, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, published a lengthy blog post giving the company’s view of the Activision-Blizzard acquisition. Spencer announced that Xbox intends “to make Activision Blizzard’s much-loved library of games – including Overwatch, Diablo and Call of Duty – available in Game Pass and to grow those gaming communities”.
When it comes to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, one of the growing concerns amongst the community was whether or not Call of Duty would continue to be released on other platforms, such as PlayStation and PC. Thankfully, Spencer went on record to state that despite many believing the deal would take franchises away from other platforms, Xbox remains committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation from launch.
During Nadella’s interview with Bloomberg, he also expressed how he believes Microsoft is “either the number four or number five competitor in the video game industry”, whilst citing Sony as currently holding the number one position. Nadella pointed out that Sony have also made some pretty major acquisitions this year, “so if this is about competition, let us have competition”.
It’s still likely to be quite some time until Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard is approved, so players won’t notice any difference until the deal is finalized.