“We look forward to continuing to release epic entertainment in service of our global community of players as a part of Microsoft, one of the world’s most admired companies. We continue to expect that our transaction will close in Microsoft’s current fiscal year ending June 2023,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard.
The news comes a day after a report in The New York Post suggested that due to scrutiny of the deal by antitrust authorities in the US, the UK and the European Union (EU), some insiders at the game studio are worried that the Microsoft-Activision merger could crumble. The report also mentions that both Microsoft and Activision are “publicly putting on brave faces and insisting the deal will go through.”
Microsoft’s bid to bring gaming to phones
Microsoft’s deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been under scrutiny of regulatory bodies of several countries. Recently, Microsoft shared multiple plans of the company to convince the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to approve the acquisition deal.
During the filings, Microsoft revealed it plans to expand the Xbox Store to mobile devices by creating a new Xbox Mobile Platform that will include games from Activision and King. The company explained that by adding Activision Blizzard’s content, it can “create a next-generation game store that operates across a range of devices, including mobile.”
It also highlighted the company’s plans to compete with Google and Apple so that gamers have a new platform that offers well-known and popular content like Call of Duty.
Recently, a top executive announced that Microsoft plans to keep the ‘Call of Duty’ game on PlayStation forever – something similar to what they have done with Minecraft by allowing it across platforms. “As long as there’s a PlayStation out there to ship to, our intent is that we continue to ship ‘Call of Duty’ on PlayStation,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer was quoted as saying in a report.
