Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard in the biggest ever takeover and a major shakeup for the gaming industry.
The Xbox maker will pay $68.7 billion in cash for the game designer, in a move partly aimed at the future of gaming and the metaverse.
The purchase is just the latest – and by far the biggest – game designer to be purchased by Microsoft as it looks to expand its control of games and consoles. It will turn Microsoft into the third-largest gaming company by revenue, it said, behind Tencent and Sony, and it now has 30 internal game development studios.
For gamers, it will mean that Microsoft will control a host of a different popular game franchises, including Call of Duty, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch and Candy Crush.
Those games will come to Microsoft’s Game Pass, it said, meaning that subscribers will be able to play them for free.