Activision Blizzard's game characters.
Activision Blizzard's game characters.
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Microsoft extends Activision Blizzard merger deadline by 3 months

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Microsoft has agreed to extend the deadline for its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard by three months to October 18, 2023.

The deal has been pending for 18 months and the closing was expected to happen by July 18, but regulatory delays have held up the closing. If the deal doesn’t close by October 18, then Activision Blizzard will get a higher breakup fee of $4.5 billion, compared to the previous breakup fee of $3 billion.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.