American multinational corporation for technology, Microsoft, have recently declared their intention to purchase the huge gaming company Activision Blizzard. The acquisition, believed to have a value of 68.7 billion US dollars is one of the largest transactions to be recorded in the history of gaming.
The move comes as Microsoft has already bought a number of the most well-known gaming franchises in the world which include Call of Duty, Warcraft and Overwatch. While technology is continuing to develop the gaming industry as technology advances, more and more businesses are making the choice to invest in the gaming industry.
The arrangement with Microsoft is believed that it will have an impact on other large technology companies, like Sony which is currently experiencing an economic slump in the Tokyo market for trade. In the next section, we’ll explore why tech conglomerates are interested in investing in the gaming sector. We’ll also take an in-depth review of what the agreement that has been struck between Microsoft as well as Activision Blizzard means.
The development of gaming online
In the last few times, the industry of gaming has seen significant growth, to which it is currently worth over $55 billion US dollars. This increase has been helped by the continual development of the technology industry which has helped drive the growing popularity for online games.
With the constantly evolving technology numerous devices, including laptops, smartphones gaming consoles, tablets and tablets are becoming affordable and available for everyday users. As connectivity to 5G and 4G grows more widely all over the world the world is becoming more connected. More and more users have access to the internet, and as consequently, online gaming.
The rise of online gaming platform
Gaming was once static and needed to be downloaded on individual devices, nowadays video games are now live streamed on cloud gaming platforms like Google Strada and Origin. This is the latest technology that means players from all over the world can join and play the same games in real-time which makes gaming more social and engaging.
Games such as COD have been thriving on the cloud technology, which has led them to draw the attention of giant players like Microsoft that are seeing the value of game market that is based on cloud technology.
A merger of technology and gaming companies
In the midst of fierce competition between the tech giants of the globe, it is becoming clear: their main goal is to take over other companies in the process. The saying goes that “if you’re not able to beat them then join them numerous tech companies are teaming up to take on the bigger competitors.
Let’s look at some of the most significant tech mergers to date.
Google and Fitbit
In 2020, following Google had a hard time overcoming Apple’s new device, they bought Fitbit out for a staggering $2.1 billion. Although it’s still unclear what Google’s plans are for the company, it is believed that Google will utilize the merging to create their own smartwatch that will incorporates Fitbit’s technology. Google will also gain by absorbing more than 29 million of active Fitbit customers who are currently using the devices for health monitoring.
Apple and Beats
It is known as one of the most listened-to headphone manufacturers worldwide, with an impressive brand and a distinctive design that is reminiscent of the style of Apple, Apple saw an opportunity to acquire Beats in the year 2014. Since it is a very budget-friendly company, the purchase was regarded as being among the most expensive deals in Apple history.
Paypal and Honey
Being one of the more viewed online wallets, PayPal has benefitted from its superiority for some time. But they recently went step further, by purchasing the application Honey in an effort to support the more transactional business model. It is expected that this acquisition will aid Paypals network of users be able to search for and purchase more products through Honey’s Honey Merchant Network.
mergers taking place in the online gambling industry
Mergers also have a huge following in the world of online gaming because the online casino market is becoming just similar to the technological world. Online casinos are constantly adapting to the most recent gaming technology and online casino games have not been as popular and operators must continue to develop to keep ahead of the competitors. One of the major changes we’ve observed in this particular niche is sites that are only providing one game on their website such as slots sites that only offer slots and not other games offered by casinos, or poker websites that offer only certain different poker games. This has meant that companies are being allowed to diversify and provide a variety of niche-specific sites.
Some of the largest mergers in the history of online gambling are CG Technology and William Hill, SkyBet and the Stars Group, Ladbrokes Coral and GVC and SB Tech and DraftKing.
The agreement with Microsoft as well as Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard is known as an extremely strong American gaming holding company located in California. Although Activision is extremely successful however, their turbulent past has required them to be purchased by companies like Microsoft to secure a stable future for the business.
What is this going to have to do with Microsoft? The merger has transformed Microsoft into the third largest gaming company in terms of revenue worldwide third largest gaming company in the world, just second only to Tencent with its headquarters in China as well as the Japanese group, Sony.
In the end, we are likely to see many new partnerships in the tech and gaming industry as competition grows more intense. These new alliances are threatening those who choose not to follow the same path and could ultimately decrease the diversity of gaming and technology sectors. The main concern for everyone is who is going to merge next?
