Gaming Future: Xbox Carves out a Huge Win for Consumers!
Xbox + Activision Blizzard King = Consumer positive!
As a avid gamer, my pocket book is about to change drastically thanks to Microsoft’s gaming division, Xbox. Over the past 2 years Xbox has been embroiled in a massive fight with Competition authorities around the world to complete a 70 billion dollar acquisition of Activision Blizzard King (ABK).
As of this morning, 13 October 2023, the last holdout preventing the acquisition from completing, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) from the United Kingdom gave its approval of the proposed purchase. Being the last holdout and the most stringent and fierce opposition to the acquisition lead Xbox to make a series of concessions to get the deal done. Yet none of them were bad for the Xbox Brand, Microsoft, Xbox Gamers, or consumers.
As a term of their acquisition, Xbox sold its cloud streaming rights of the ABK games to a competitor, Ubisoft. This was the final step in quelling all the opposition left in the CMA. Allowing for what I will call here, the most important part of today, Friday the 13th of all days, the closure of this tremendously consumer beneficial deal.
“Today is a great day for gamers everywhere. Together with Activision Blizzard, we will deliver on our vision to help people connect and play great games wherever, whenever, and however they want.”
That is right, effective today, Xbox has completed its acquisition of ABK. This momentous feat was brought by the hard work and dedication of all those at Xbox who wanted to get this deal done, and those within ABK who wanted to also get this deal done. And with the closure of this deal brings massive consumer benefits. Many battles were fought to get here, with lawyers titter-tatting about court rooms. CEO’s of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and Microsoft, Xbox’s Phil Spencer, and many others had their day in court spelling out why this was good, and some saying why they thought it was bad. In the end, consumers won.
So what boons are the consumers going to receive by a trillion dollar company (Microsoft) buying a massive gaming publisher. Well, it is pretty obvious for those of us gamers, but for those whom are new to this or just don’t follow anything to do with gaming. Xbox has something called Xbox Game Pass. We can call this essentially the Netflix of Gaming. This service currently boasts over 300 games from 1st, and 3rd party developers from all over the globe. It also has multiple versions, including PC Game Pass for those whom want to play games on their PC instead of buying an Xbox.
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