Xbox Head on the Ramifications of Acquiring (or Not Acquiring) Activision Blizzard

BY BAYANI MIGUEL ACEBEDO

PUBLISHED 2 YEARS AGO

Bayani Miguel Acebedo

Writer and Storywriter

Bayani is a freelance pop-culture newswriter that's been covering the news cycle since 2017. He writes mostly about TV and movies, but he also covers the biggest game news and makes sure to keep you up-to-date on the hottest titles. Though he does specialize on topics like Star Wars and Comic Book films, he also keeps up to date on none superhero properties like the latest movies and most buzzed about tv shows. He also has a podcast called Feed the Geeks which you can check out on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. He also draws original webcomics from time to time.

When news came about that Xbox was acquiring Activision Blizzard, there was a lot of buzz going around online on what this could mean to Blizzard games on other consoles.

Xbox Head on the Ramifications of Acquiring (or Not Acquiring) Activision Blizzard

Talking to The Times (via VGC), Xbox head Phil Spencer talks about the acquisition, and how it is currently being investigated as to whether it would be good for competition for Xbox to acquire the massive game studio. Spencer explains, “This is an important acquisition for us. It’s not some linchpin to the long term — Xbox will exist if this deal doesn’t go through.”

One big concern with the acquisition is the Call of Duty franchise which is said to take up a huge bulk of PlayStation’s business. If anything, Microsoft has said that they have offered a contract with Sony to release every new COD game on PlayStation the same day that it releases for Xbox.

Admittedly, a lot of fans have been considering the console war to be anti-consumer, with consoles touting exclusives, forcing players to spend more on specific consoles just to check out certain games. To that, Spencer says, “To me, having us, Sony, and Nintendo doing well in the console market — all of us with strengths and uniqueness and content and capabilities — gives consumers more choice… I’d hate to see consoles go to where phones are where there are only two manufacturers. And, right now, we have three good competitors.”

We don’t know if this acquisition is going to push through smoothly, but at least we know that Xbox is confident it can survive without Blizzard.

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