Tag Archives: Activision Blizzard

Yesterday during the Official Xbox Podcast, Phil Spencer announced plans to bring four Xbox games to rival consoles. While this is happening, Xbox, PC and mobile will continue to be the only places with Xbox Game Pass access, and soon, Microsoft will finally start bringing Activision Blizzard titles over.  During …

Despite Microsoft already completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard and has made many concessions to get the deal approved by regulators across the world, the FTC is still hoping to reverse the transaction. In its latest appeals letter, the FTC takes issue with the recent lay-offs announced at Activision Blizzard. …

Several months on from acquiring Activision Blizzard, Microsoft kicked off 2024 with the announcement that it would be laying off nearly 2000 employees. Unsurprisingly, this has been followed up by a glowing earnings report from Microsoft executives.  With the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft's gaming business is now one of …

Activision Blizzard let go of most of its Overwatch League staff earlier this year, marking a turning point in the company's future esports plans. A few weeks after the company's merger with Microsoft, it has been confirmed that the Overwatch League is shutting down.  The Overwatch League was dreamt up …

As of today, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has completed and as a result, Ubisoft now owns the cloud streaming rights to all Activision Blizzard games, including all previously released games and all new games released over the next 15 years. As a result, Ubisoft announced today that it plans …

While Bobby Kotick has managed to turn Activision into a hugely successful publisher over the last few decades, the CEO has had his fair share of controversies too. Just two years ago, employees were protesting and calling for his resignation. Now, following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Kotick will indeed …

The largest deal in gaming history has now completed after 20 months of battling regulatory hurdles. Microsoft now owns Activision Blizzard King and most importantly, employees at those studios are looking forward to the change.

Earlier this month, reports claimed that Microsoft would obtain UK approval for its Activision Blizzard deal this week, with plans to close as soon as this coming Friday. However, given that the deal was tweaked after obtaining EU approval for the old deal, there have been questions as to whether …

It was January 2022 when Microsoft first announced its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard. Now some 20 months later, the deal finally looks set to close next Friday.  According to “a source familiar with Microsoft's plans” speaking with The Verge, Microsoft is hoping to complete the transaction on Friday, the …

Back in June following Diablo 4's launch, Blizzard announced that it was the company's fastest selling game ever, without sharing specific sales numbers. Now six weeks on from launch, we know that the game brought in over 10 million players during its first month.  Diablo 4 first launched on the …

Earlier this week, a US judge ruled against the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction to stop Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In the ruling, the judge stated that the FTC simply did not provide enough evidence to prove a theory of harm. Now, Microsoft is preparing to close the …

This week, a US court officially made its decision on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, denying the FTC's request to block the merger. This leaves the UK's CMA as the final hurdle against the deal closing and within an hour of the US court decision going public, Microsoft and the CMA announced a plan to pause their appeal battle to renegotiate. At the rate things are going, Microsoft could officially own Activision Blizzard as soon as next week. 

Earlier this afternoon, a US judge blocked the FTC's request for an injunction to stop Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. With this loss, the only regulator standing to stop the deal from closing immediately is the UK's CMA. Within an hour of the US court decision coming down, Microsoft has …

The FTC's case against Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition finally entered federal court in recent weeks. While the UK's CMA wanted to block the deal on cloud gaming concerns, the FTC's case primarily focused on the deal's impact on Sony and the PlayStation business. Now, the judge has rejected the FTC's …

DayZ is one of just a handful of titles responsible for ushering in a wave of early access survival games on PC. The original game has been out of early access for a while now and thanks to documents revealed as part of the FTC VS Microsoft hearing over the …

Documents related to Microsoft's potential acquisition targets have surfaced through the ongoing hearing against the FTC over the Activision Blizzard acquisition. This document revealed a number of high-profile targets, including the likes of SEGA, Square Enix, CD Projekt Red as well as plenty of smaller studios.  Microsoft was indeed considering …

This week has brought through another update in the ongoing saga between Microsoft, Activision Blizzard and regulators. This time around, the FTC has finally begun to move its feet, filing for a temporary restraining order to stop the deal from closing, as well as a preliminary injunction that would block …

Shortly after the European Commission announced its decision to approve Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the CMA took to Twitter to outline the reasons it disagrees with the decision and is moving ahead with its decision to block. Now today, the EU has put out a lengthy statement on its …

The Microsoft-ABK acquisition has turned into a political circus here in the UK and Microsoft is making sure to throw its weight around, going as far as to hint at the possibility of pulling products out of the UK and investing elsewhere.

Last week, it was reported that the European Commission would announce its decision on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard this week. As it turns out, that report was indeed accurate, with the commission publishing its press release today, approving the deal. 

While the FTC and the CMA are opposing Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, reports this week claim that the European Commission has a different view on the deal and plans to approve it.  According to sources speaking with Reuters, the EU will approve Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition. Previously, the Commission …

Earlier this week, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) officially announced its decision to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, citing concerns around the future of the cloud gaming market. Now, some of the cloud gaming companies that Microsoft signed deals with are speaking out in favour of the …

The CMA announced its final decision on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard today, moving to block the deal based on concerns around the future of the cloud gaming market. As you would expect, Microsoft and Activision have been quick to issue statements, with Activision going as far as to …

While Microsoft was able to convince the UK's Competition & Markets Authority that its acquisition of Activision Blizzard would not harm the console gaming market, it would seem the CMA was not convinced that the deal wouldn't impede competition in the cloud gaming market. 

The CMA has set a 26th of April deadline to announce its final decision on Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The CMA has already changed its initial stance, finding that the deal would not harm competition in the console space. As it turns out, the Xbox team is also …

As part of its effort to get the CMA on board with its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has signed a number of 10-year deals, not only guaranteeing Call of Duty on other console platforms but all Xbox first-party titles for various cloud services. The latest 10-year cloud support deal …

The CMA has published its latest update into its ongoing investigation into Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. While previously, the regulator seemed to have many concerns, it has now “narrowed its scope” of issues with the deal and no longer feels that it would “result in a substantial lessening …

While we've known for a while now that Sony has been in talks with the CMA to express concerns about Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, we haven't heard much about studios speaking out in defence of the acquisition. That changed today, with the CMA's filings being updated with responses …

Just recently, we heard that Sony is developing a PS5 Pro console, indicating that the PlayStation 6 should arrive sometime between 2027 and 2028. Now, regulatory filings have confirmed that Microsoft is also working on its next generation of Xbox hardware and services.  The FTC is currently suing Microsoft to …

Yesterday Microsoft announced a new deal with a competing cloud gaming provider in an effort to convince regulators that its acquisition of Activision Blizzard won't squeeze the competition out of the market. Today, the company is announcing yet another deal, this time with a more widely known cloud gaming company.  …