Microsoft Reportedly Tried to Buy Blizzard Multiple Times Over the Years
Microsoft has been a gaming giant for a long time, and it’s even bigger after a series of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions over the last couple of years. The Xbox manufacturer acquired publisher and developer Bethesda in 2021 and followed up with its record-breaking $20 billion buyouts of Activision Blizzard.
However, it turns out that this is not the first time that Microsoft has attempted to snag Blizzard for itself. According to former Xbox vice president Ed Fries, he tried to buy out Blizzard twice before his departure from Microsoft in 2004.
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Fries discussed the history between Blizzard and Microsoft during the April 17th episode of the XboxEra podcast. He revealed that Microsoft first attempted to acquire Blizzard in 1996, long before World of Warcraft turned the studio into a household name. However, the Warcraft series of real-time strategies was already an established brand by that point and played a significant role in the RTS boom of the 1990s. This is what drew Microsoft to the studio. “If you think about the roots of our PC gaming business,” said Fries, “it was real-time strategy… Warcraft, of course, was their biggest product.” Fries was also a Blizzard fan himself and attempted to acquire the studio’s parent company for Microsoft when it went up for sale in 1996.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, real-estate and travel company Cendant Corporation ultimately gained possession of Blizzard. During the podcast, Fries recalled lamenting, «I just got outbid by a time-share camping business?” Microsoft’s second attempt at acquiring Blizzard occurred in 1998 when Cendant put it up for sale. However, the company lost out again, this time to the French
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