Microsoft CEO Doesn’t Rule Out Carving Activision Blizzard Games Out of the UK
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been instrumental in the investment growth allowed for the gaming division led by Phil Spencer.
In October 2017, he underlined his vision for Game Pass: a Netflix-like subscription service for games. To do that, Game Pass needed a lot of content, and in the following years, the Microsoft CEO greenlit aggressive investments that led to the acquisition of development studios like Playground Games, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games, inXile Entertainment, Obsidian Entertainment, Double Fine Productions, and the entirety of ZeniMax Media (Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, MachineGames, Arkane Studios, Tango Gameworks, Roundhouse Studios, ZeniMax Online Studios).
The biggest acquisition was announced in early 2022, however, when Microsoft and Activision Blizzard agreed to a merger worth $68.7 billion. Dozens of articles have been written since on the deal, though Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella rarely shared a direct comment except when he expressed 'strong confidence' that it would eventually be approved by regulators around the world.
That changed today when CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin interviewed him during the latest episode of Squawk Box, a morning news and talk program dedicated to business. While Sorkin started the interview by asking Nadella about OpenAI and generative AI, the conversation then moved on to the recent decision of the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority to block the Activision Blizzard deal merger.
On that note, the Microsoft CEO said:
Look, I mean, the fundamental logic of this deal, bringing more competition and more opportunity for publishers and gamers, still holds, so as far as I'm concerned, we keep going. We wait for what the European Union decides.
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