Microsoft’s stance on acquisitions has been abundantly clear over the last couple of years- the company has piled on a ridiculous number of them, some of them far bigger in scale than anyone could have anticipated, and it doesn’t plan on slowing down. Not too long ago, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said that the company was planning on making more acquisitions, and even tough the massive purchase of Activision Blizzard has been announced since then, it seems Microsoft still wants further growth.
Microsoft recently published a job listing on LinkedIn for the position of Manager, Gaming Strategy & Development, and it seems one of the areas where the successful applicant for the position will be focused is acquisitions.
“We are leading with innovation across our entire business, as highlighted by our launches of Xbox Series S | X, Xbox Game Pass, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, our acquisition of ZeniMax Media (“Bethesda”), and our announced acquisition of Activision Blizzard,” the listing reads.
One of the requirements in the listing also states that the applicant will be responsible for “developing and evaluating the business case for content & technology acquisitions.”
Given how aggressively Microsoft has been expanding its Xbox Game Studios portfolio, it comes as no surprise that the company is planning on continuing to add to that lineup, especially as it looks to set up a pipeline of consistent exclusive content for Game Pass. How long it’ll be before any of these future deals materialize remains to be seen, of course. As for the Activision Blizzard acquisition, the deal is expected to close sometime in 2023.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the console market, Sony has also been a big participant in the acquisitions race, having acquired a number of studios last year, followed by acquisitions of Bungie and Haven Studios in 2022 so far. Sony, too, has said that it’s looking into more acquisitions for the future. Read more on that through here.
