Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard — now what? | Kaser Focus

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft today finally completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard King after 21 months of prep work and grappling with regulatory bodies. The $69 billion deal sees several of gaming’s most lucrative franchises come under the Microsoft/Xbox umbrella, including Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, etc. However, this begs the question: Now that the whole rigmarole of acquisition is done, what happens for Activision Blizzard now?

The short answer, coming from Phil Spencer himself, appears to be that Microsoft is working to get Activision Blizzard games onto Xbox Game Pass. He didn’t say specifically which games — and Activision Blizzard has said it anticipates its games hitting Game Pass next year at the earliest. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is likely to retire sometime early next year, probably taking with him his $15 million golden parachute.