Microsoft recently announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a massive deal that is valued at nearly $69 billion. The repercussions of this acquisition are obviously going to be far-reaching, but they aren’t going to become clear for a while, what with the deal not being completed until fiscal year 2023. Some other things are going to remain unclear as well.
For instance, what does this acquisition mean about the position of under-fire Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick? In its statement, all Microsoft has said so far that will Kotick will remain CEO of Activision Blizzard, and once the acquisition is finalized, the company at large will report to Phil Spencer as the CEO of Microsoft Gaming. But does that mean Kotick will be let go?
Given the fact that the acquisition hasn’t yet been finalized, legally, no one at Microsoft or Activision can say anything about what’s going to happen once the ink is dry, but according to The Wall Street Journal, Kotick will leave the company once the Xbox-Activision deal has closed.
Plenty of other questions aren’t going to be cleared up until then either. For instance, how is Microsoft going to handle the exclusivity (or lack thereof) of Activision franchises? Reports claim that while some games will remain multiplatform, others will become exclusive to Xbox and PC. Read more on that through here.