Microsoft Makes Its Case for the Activision Blizzard Acquisition

▤ Summary

Microsoft president Brad Smith says that Xbox is a distant third in consoles and has no presence at all in mobile gaming. “Acquiring Activision Blizzard would enable Microsoft to compete against these companies through innovation that would benefit consumers.” It’s not clear how: Apple and Google’s stranglehold on mobile and a bizarre lack of action from regulators allows those firms to behave illegally and, among their many other sins, overcharge developers with in-app fees that often have little or nothing to do with the cost of maintaining their infrastructures. Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming is a great example: Apple refuses to let the firm offer this service through its mobile app stores because it wishes to collect a 15-to-30 percent fee on every single game that users stream through the service. “To get subscribers to this service, Microsoft needs a full library of popular games and, as things stand, we simply don’t have enough,” he argues. Activision Blizzard comes with popular mobile, PC and console games, including Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, and Call of Duty.

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Microsoft

$1B+