$68.7 billion! The biggest acquisition in Microsoft's history is to eat a game company, the sword pointing to the metacosm

Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Lin Xi intern Zheng Zuqin

Microsoft's biggest acquisition in 46 years was announced late at night on January 18. It will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95 per share in an all-cash transaction worth $68.7 billion, or 436.4 billion yuan. Microsoft's message to the Yangcheng Evening News reporter shows that the planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from Activision, Blizzard and King Studios.

Activision Blizzard's hit games such as Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush, as well as global esports events through Major League Baseball games. The company has studios around the world and employs nearly 10,000 people. As of the close of the US stock market on the 18th, Activision Blizzard's stock price soared by 25.88%, rising more than 32% intraday, while Microsoft's stock price fell by 2.43%.

Why buy a gaming company?

In most impressions, Microsoft, as the world's largest office software and computer system company, has little to do with games, but in fact, Microsoft has many other games in addition to the game console XBOX. Previously, Microsoft spent $2.5 billion to acquire Mojang Stuidio for Minecraft; and $7.5 billion to acquire ZeniMax Media for a whole bunch of high-quality IPs such as The Elder Scrolls. Game IP is Microsoft's layout road in recent years, and Blizzard, which has many world-class quality game IP, has naturally become Microsoft's goal, and it is also a good opportunity for Microsoft to cut into C-end users.

It is worth mentioning that in this acquisition, the creators of Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Hearthstone, StarCraft and so on will join the Microsoft Xbox team. As Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft's Gaming business, said: With this deal, Activision Blizzard will bring Microsoft Games the most exciting content series, creative teams, and fan base of any form of entertainment in the world." Once the acquisition is settled, as many Activision Blizzard games will be added to Xbox Game Pass and PC Gmae Pass, and Activision Blizzard games will also join the Xbox Cloud Gaming Program. Microsoft will also be the world's third-largest gaming company by revenue, after Tencent and Sony.

The ambition of the giants to enter the metaverse

For the deal, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that games are the most dynamic and exciting category of entertainment of all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaversal platforms. Microsoft is investing heavily in world-class content, communities, and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first, making games safe, inclusive, and accessible to all.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has also been interpreted by the outside world as Microsoft began to join the competition for the dominance of the meta-universe. Since Zuckerberg's high-profile announcement of its entry into the metaverse and the renaming of Facebook to Meta last year, giants have ventured into what is considered a future technology development. There is no doubt that Activision Blizzard's games with metaverse concepts are world-famous, and players spend hundreds of hours building communities in the game, which may be seen as the "prototype" of the current metaverse. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick wrote in an email to all employees:

"Our talents and games are an important part of building a rich metaverse. We always attract the best game developers, build the best games, and seize opportunities with passion, inspiration, focus, and determination. "Public information shows that there are 3 billion gamers in the world, and the expected growth rate is 4.5 billion in 2030; the game industry is the largest and fastest growing form of entertainment at $20 billion; and the game in 2021 alone is 64% higher than in 2020." It is understood that Microsoft Game Pass has more than 25 million subscribers, and after this acquisition, Activision Blizzard's nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries will also greatly increase the potential user pool of Game Pass.

A-share game companies are collectively restless

Boosted by Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard news, the online game sector rose strongly, collective restlessness, January 19, Xunyou Technology, Xinghui Entertainment "20cm" up, Capital Online up 11.3%, Shengtian Network up 10.89%, Glacier Network up 11.87%, Bo Rui Spread up, Electric Soul Network up 7.9%, Tom Cat up 8.74%. Shanxi Securities pointed out that at present, the global mobile game market is facing a new round of strong growth, and the scale of China's mobile game overseas market is constantly improving, mainly benefiting from the low penetration rate of the overseas mobile game market, the change of game habits brought about by the online dividend of the epidemic and its own excellent game quality. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)

Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie

Editor-in-charge | Sun Qiman