After the acquisition of Blizzard, take stock of Microsoft's "game empire"

With the imminent acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, Microsoft is now the world's third-largest video game publisher by revenue. It has several of the largest game franchises ever created, including Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and now Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has slowly but steadily expanded its holdings, adding its standing first-party developers. For more than a decade, Microsoft's explosive acquisitions, coupled with last year's acquisition of Bethesda, have made Microsoft a "hundred-armed giant" in the game industry, second only to Sony and Tencent in scale. If the deal is successful, here's a breakdown of the studios and games Microsoft might have.

Although Xbox Game Studios Publishing was only officially launched in 2000, Microsoft has released a large number of games, including familiar games such as solitaire and minesweepers, the earliest of which can be traced back to the 70s. In the process, Microsoft created several first-party studios to handle the development of its flagship series.

In 2001, Microsoft created Turn 10 Studios for the racing game Racing. Halo Unlimited developer 343 Industries was founded in 2007. In 2010, Microsoft created studio The Coalition after purchasing the Gears of War series from Epic Games. In 2018, The Initiative became Microsoft's first Santa Monica-based developer to work on the new Perfect Darkness series. Subsequently, in 2019, Microsoft established World's Edge to oversee the operations of the Age of Empires series.

In 2002, Microsoft sounded the clarion call of the "era of big acquisitions". That year, Microsoft acquired British developer Rare. With the release of Battletoads in 1991, Rare became the leader in the early 90s cartoon platform jumping game, followed by the introduction of the Donkey Kong Series, Banjo Bear Adventure, Squirrel Cook's Unlucky Day and Donkey Kong 64. Haunted House Adventure was the first Xbox exclusive game from Rare to receive a mediocre response. Rare's second exclusive game, Viva Pinata, was widely welcomed. Rare has developed several games for Xbox's now-defunct Kinect peripherals. Currently they are maintaining the popular pirate co-op game Sea of Thieves. In 2019, Rare announced that it was working on a new action-adventure game called Everwild.

In 2014, Mojang became Microsoft's largest acquisition to date, adding the hugely successful sandbox game Minecraft to the Xbox family for $2.5 billion.

2018 was a big year for Xbox, with they acquiring six studios:

Compulsion Games, the developer of Lucky Few, is currently working on an unpublished third-person narrative game.

Ninja Theory, developer of the critically acclaimed Hellblade series.

inXile Entertainment, a studio focused on role-playing games, is the developer of Wasteland 3.

Obsidian Entertainment, which developed the famous Pillars of Eternity series and The Outer Worlds. They also have a first-person RPG coming soon.

Playground Games, developer of the racing game Extreme Horizon series

Undead Labs, developer of the Rotten Nation series

With the purchase of Brain Crew 2 developer Double Fine Productions, Microsoft's "buy buy buy" boom continues in 2019.

In 2021, Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media/Bethesda Softworks, marking a sign that Microsoft seems to have abandoned its strategy of acquiring a single company and instead began to absorb large publishers and all of their studios. Microsoft acquired Bethesda for $7.5 billion, acquiring eight of its subsidiaries:

Mobile developer Alpha Dog Games;

French developer Arkane Studios, who developed the Shame series and The Cycle of Death;

Developed Bethesda Game Studios, developer of the Fallout series and the Elder Scrolls series;

MachineGames, developer of the Wehrmacht series;

Creator of the famous doom series Id Software;

Developer of the Horror "Evil Spirits" series, Tokyo-based Japanese developer Tango Gameworks;

Roundhouse Studios, formerly known as Human Head Studios, developer of 2006 Prey;

ZeniMax Online Studios, which oversees MMO The Elder Scrolls Online;

If the acquisition of Activision Blizzard is completed, Microsoft will add 9 new studios, bringing the total number of developers to 32. The largest studios in the deal are Call of Duty series developer Treyarch Games and Infinity Ward, and overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment. Activision's previous acquisitions and mergers will grant Microsoft ownership of the former PlayStation exclusive games Spike the Dragon, Wolf Of The Jungle, and Tony Hawk series.

The deal also includes a number of smaller studios that act as co-developers or support Activision Blizzard's big games, including Beeox, Toys for Bob, High Moon Studios, and Sledgehammer Games. Raven Software appears to be in poor shape, with employee strikes that have been going on for five weeks. Microsoft will also get the major players in the mobile gaming space through King, the creator of Candy Crush.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard presents a huge opportunity to expand its game subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, but the addition of the above-mentioned games to XGP is also unlikely to be a "day's work". Microsoft must also consider Activision Blizzard's discrimination controversy, and they must also unite the various studios under the ABK umbrella. The acquisition is still subject to an approval process and is not expected to be completed until 2023.

Leifeng Network