TechnesstivityWhat Happens When Activision Blizzard Join Mircosoft?
The bestsellers of the industry: Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, the 007 James Bond, were published and some partly developed by Activision Blizzard. Now imagine all those brands becoming exclusive to Microsoft platforms. Analytically, these products already create a lot of revenue on other platforms , when you eliminate that, what you have is a poor business move. Or is it?
The real news is that Vivendi is looking to sell its 61% stake in Activision Blizzard to help solve its own debt woes. Reuters reports that they sought a banker to reach out to potential buyers, including Microsoft. Obviously the list of companies that could afford the $10 billion price is a short one. Nintendo is still recovering from the worst fiscal year ever and Sony is in bad shape too.
That leaves Microsoft as the only established gaming superpower that could probably make this deal. IGN News looked at the brands Blizzard, Call of Duty, Skylanders and other licensed titles and concluded that
“…if Microsoft took the $10 billion plunge to acquire controlling interest in Activision Blizzard (as of now they reportedly aren’t “actively considering a bid,” though “that could change”), they’d either be giving up an unfathomable amount of revenue to try to suffocate their video game competition, or be forced to swallow their pride and publish games for competing consoles – no doubt under the Activision label.”
Vivendi is in a difficult position with this sale. Activision Blizzard is textbook victim of its own success in that for Vivendi, it might be “too big to be sold.” Microsoft probably shouldn’t reach into the bank for this, but if they did, it would be the biggest risk and maybe the biggest reward in Xbox history.
More on the story as it develops.
