Microsoft’s Head Of Gaming Is Confident That The Activision Acquisition Will Go Through

Microsoft's possible acquisition of Activision has been debated and talked about in many different ways. Sony still believes that players will be jumping to Xbox if the deal goes through, suspecting that Call of Duty will eventually be pulled off Sony’s platforms. While Sony is vehemently against the acquisition, it seems not everyone holds the same sentiments. In fact, recently Brazil followed Saudi Arabia in its decision to approve the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard, as Brazil believes such an acquisition will have little effect on Sony.

During all of this, Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, has been calm and collected about the whole thing. Speaking during the Wall Street Journal Tech Live event, Spencer spoke up and addressed the scrutiny by saying the deal was “warranted,” "honest", and “fair”.

“I would say the discussions have been very fair and honest. It is a big acquisition, there’s no doubt. Microsoft in its role in the tech industry, is a large tech company, and I do think the discussion around an acquisition of this size is warranted, and I’ve appreciated the time to go spend.” said Spencer. “We’re really focused on getting the deal approved in the markets – I’m confident in that. I was just in London last week, continue to have discussions with all the regulatory boards, and remain confident that we’ll get the deal approved.”

In the Wall Street Journal discussion, Spencer reiterated Microsoft’s stance once more that it will continue to release CoD on PlayStation platforms for the foreseeable future as long as it makes sense to do so. Spencer then went on to explain that the debate of CoD on PlayStation or Xbox wasn’t what the deal was ever supposed to be about, but rather on mobile growth.

“Most of the dialogue that’s out there has been around consoles, and how Xbox and PlayStation consoles compete with each other. But when we think about three billion people playing video games, there’s only about 200 million households that play on console. The vast majority of people who play, do so on the device that’s already in their pocket, which is their phone.”

Still, considering that Google and Apple are the two powerhouses in the cellphone industry, there will probably still be more steps before Microsoft holds the presence that they want in the mobile game scene. In fact, Microsoft is currently upset over the recent partnership between Genshin Impact's developer HoYoverse and Sony and is trying to find their own Chinese-based development team considering their strong recent growth in the video game and mobile game industry.