A record operation. Tuesday, January 18, Microsoft announced its intention to get its hands on the video game studio Activision for an amount of 68.7 billion dollars (60.7 billion euros). The offer, to which the leaders of the two parties agree, must succeed in 2023, following a vote by Activision shareholders and, probably, a review by the competition authorities.
This takeover is the largest ever made in this sector by the Redmond giant, and also the largest ever made by it in absolute terms, far ahead of the one that led it to appropriate the professional social network LinkedIn for more $26 billion in 2016.
The tour de force of Microsoft, producer of the Xbox consoles, is all the more remarkable since during the era of Bill Gates and Steve Balmer, the video game division had remained the “poor relative” company, explains Julien Pillot, teacher-researcher at Inseec. Since then, under the impetus of Satya Nadella, boss of the company since 2014, and Phil Spencer, head of the video game division, she has become one of the pillars of the group. In 2021, it accounted for almost 10% of its $168 billion in revenue, up regarding 33% from the previous year.
“The greatest form of entertainment”
In announcing the takeover of Activision, Satya Nadella recalled his ambitions in the sector, noting that video games were, with 3 billion users, “the greatest and fastest growing form of entertainment”, with a prediction of 4.5 billion consumers in 2030. His thinking is not new. It was upon his arrival that Microsoft acquired Minecraft. Above all, it was under his aegis that the takeover of the Zenimax studio took place in 2021 – with its popular games Fall Out, Doom, Wolfenstein – for $7.5 billion.
By taking over Activision – 400 million monthly active players, 10,000 employees – Microsoft is aiming for a much higher target with even more prestigious titles on PC and consoles, such as Call of Duty Where World of Warcraft, but also opens a door on the mobile games segment, on which it was almost absent. In the bride’s basket, is indeed the King studio (at the origin of the game Candy Crush), which will allow it to roll out its smartphone licenses more quickly.
In a market that is experiencing consolidation like it has never known, Microsoft’s coup promises to reshuffle the cards. Promised with this takeover to become the third global player in the sector behind the Chinese Tencent and the Japanese Sony, it is putting a “huge pressure” to the manufacturer of the PlayStation, estimates Charles-Louis Planade, analyst specializing in video games at MidCap Partners. There are hardly any major studios left to buy, except Electronic Arts (EA) – handicapped by the vagaries of its agreements with sports federations to develop its flagship titles in football games (with FIFA) or Formula 1 (with the FIA) – or Ubisoft.
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