Today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella appeared on Bloomberg’s Technology show, discussing a few topics such as his company’s massive Activision Blizzard deal announced earlier this year.
The Microsoft CEO expressed strong confidence that the deal worth nearly $70 billion would get through regulatory hurdles, highlighting that companies ranked higher in gaming revenue like Sony are still investing in M&A.
For us, in gaming, we have one goal, which is to bring more games to more gamers on all platforms and provide more choice for publishers everywhere and developers everywhere. And so everything that we are doing with our content, with our subscription, our cloud and our community, really is about driving that choice and that opportunity.
And so we feel very confident. Of course, any acquisition of this size will go through scrutiny. But we feel very confident that we’ll come out. You know, we are number four, number five depending on how you count in gaming revenue. In fact, the number one player, in this case Sony, I think even in this period has acquired three companies. So if this is about competition, let us have competition.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was referring to Sony’s acquisition of Bungie, Haven Studios, and mobile developer Savage Game Studios. Of course, even the combination of these acquisitions does not come close to the size of the Activision Blizzard deal, but the point stands that Sony and other major players like Tencent are continuing to invest in the gaming industry. Both companies have also recently invested in FromSoftware’s parent company, Kadokawa Corporation.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Microsoft received the news of additional reviews requested by the UK’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) and the EU equivalent regulatory agency. We still haven’t heard from the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but we expect it won’t be long now.
