Microsoft will buy Activision Blizzard for almost $70 billion

Microsoft has announced that it has acquired gaming giant Activision Blizzard, known for such cult projects as World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and Call of Duty, for almost $70 billion. The deal is expected to accelerate the growth of Microsoft's gaming business on mobile devices, PCs, consoles and services in the cloud, and will also become one of the fundamental elements for the future metaverse.

As follows from the press release, Microsoft is preparing to acquire shares of Activision Blizzard at a price of $95 per share. Thus, the total amount of the transaction will be $ 68.7 billion, taking into account the money in Blizzard accounts.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who is at the center of a harassment and sexism scandal within the company, will remain in office until the deal is finalized. After that, Activision Blizzard will go under the control of Phil Spencer, who heads Microsoft Gaming.

The move of Activision's award-winning games to the Xbox camp will allow Microsoft to expand its own offerings for the console and compete with the Sony PlayStation more fiercely, notes Bloomberg . In fact, Activision has been involved with Xbox for quite some time now. Publisher Call of Duty's largest franchise has gained wide popularity thanks in large part to the Xbox Live online platform, which allows you to connect to multiplayer games.

• On the news of the deal, Activision Blizzard stock soared 38% to almost $90 a share.