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The DeanBeat: Interpreting Microsoft’s $68.7B Activision Blizzard deal as a metaverse play

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

Microsoft‘s $68.7 billion pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard will shake up the game industry to its core. It has upset the status quo and will likely trigger more deals.

Within Microsoft, I believe this will trigger or accompany a huge investment in the metaverse, leading to things like a Call of Duty metaverse and similar things for each of the company’s major franchises. A lot of other stories have said it helps Microsoft’s strategy of being the Netflix of gaming, but I think more money is at stake in the metaverse.

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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.