Microsoft to begin “doubling down” on games following acquisition of Activision, CEO says
Greater heights
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Following the acquisition of ActivisionBlizzard,Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, has revealed that the company is “looking forward to really doubling down both as a game producer and a publisher”.
In aninterview with Axel Springer (via Insider), Nadella was asked about the importance of the deal being approved, and he spoke about the company being able to make a “real contribution” to consumer markets.
“When I think about Microsoft, I think of perhaps developer tools, proprietary software, and gaming. Those are three things that we’ve done from the very beginning,” Nadella explained. “And so, to us, gaming is the one place where we think we have a real contribution to make in consumer markets.
“If I look at it, the amount of time people allocate to gaming is going up and Gen Z is going to do more of that. The way games are made, the way the games are delivered, is changing radically. Whether it’s mobile, or consoles, or PCs, or even the cloud,” he continued. “So, we’re looking forward to really doubling down both as a game producer and a publisher. Now we’ll be one of the largest game publishers and also as a company that’s building platforms for it.”
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision wasofficially closed earlier this month, following the UK regulator, theCompetition and Markets Authority, giving its approvalto an amended version of the deal. Itblocked the original dealover concerns that it could harm competition in cloud gaming in the UK, but Microsoft addressed this by stating thatit will sell the cloud streaming rightsfor current and new Activision games (releasing across the next 15 years) to Ubisoft.
In a statement released when the deal was closed, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said: “Today we start the work to bring beloved Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms. We’ll share more about when you can expect to play in the coming months. We know you’re excited – and we are too.”
If you’re on the lookout for some brilliant new game recommendations, be sure to take a look at our list of thebest Xbox Series X games. You can also keep up with what’s around the corner with our roundup ofupcoming games.
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Catherine is a News Writer for TechRadar Gaming. Armed with a journalism degree from The University of Sheffield, she was sucked into the games media industry after spending far too much time on her university newspaper writing about Pokémon and cool indie games, and realising that was a very cool job, actually. She previously spent 19 months working at GAMINGbible as a full-time journalist. She loves all things Nintendo, and will never stop talking about Xenoblade Chronicles.
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