Microsoft acquires ‘Call of Duty’ publisher Activision Blizzard

This follows major harassment and workplace scandals being reported at the company

Microsoft has acquired Activision Blizzard, in a deal that is estimated to cost around £50billion ($68billion USD).

The official announcement was made by Xbox chief Phil Spencer in this Xbox Wire post, which Bloomberg reporter Dina Bass says was made for $68.7billion.

It is currently unknown if this means franchises like Call Of Duty will be Xbox exclusive titles, although Spencer notes that “upon close, we will offer as many Activision Blizzard games as we can within Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s incredible catalog. We also announced today that Game Pass now has more than 25million subscribers. As always, we look forward to continuing to add more value and more great games to Game Pass.”

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Other franchises like Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Warcraft, Overwatch and Guitar Hero will thus be owned by Microsoft when the deal is complete, whenever that will be.

According to Spencer, “until this transaction closes, Activision Blizzard and Microsoft Gaming will continue to operate independently. Once the deal is complete, the Activision Blizzard business will report to me as CEO, Microsoft Gaming.”

This could mean that current Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick will be out of his position and possibly the company as well, following claims that he knew and chose to hide the ongoing misconduct and harassment taking place at the company.

Activision Blizzard has now also begun removing employees accused of misconduct, and Kotick allegedly told people he waited until the new year for fears that the company’s problems would “seem bigger” than is known.

In other news, Fortnite has brought back Tilted towers, alongside new creatures called Klombos. The location is a popular drop point and has been gone from the game since 2019.

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