Microsoft to begin “doubling down” on games following acquisition of Activision, CEO says

techradar.com:

Following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, has revealed that the company is “looking forward to really doubling down both as a game producer and a publisher”. 

In an interview with Axel Springer (via Insider), Nadella was asked about the importance of the deal being approved, and he spoke about the company being able to make a “real contribution” to consumer markets.

“When I think about Microsoft, I think of perhaps developer tools, proprietary software, and gaming. Those are three things that we've done from the very beginning,” Nadella explained. “And so, to us, gaming is the one place where we think we have a real contribution to make in consumer markets. 

“If I look at it, the amount of time people allocate to gaming is going up and Gen Z is going to do more of that. The way games are made, the way the games are delivered, is changing radically. Whether it's mobile, or consoles, or PCs, or even the cloud,” he continued. “So, we're looking forward to really doubling down both as a game producer and a publisher. Now we'll be one of the largest game publishers and also as a company that's building platforms for it.”

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision was officially closed earlier this month, following the UK regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, giving its approval to an amended version of the deal. It blocked the original deal over concerns that it could harm competition in cloud gaming in the UK, but Microsoft addressed this by stating that it will sell the cloud streaming rights for current and new Activision games (releasing across the next 15 years) to Ubisoft. 

In a statement released when the deal was closed, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said: «Today we start the work to