Microsoft has recently acquired Activision Blizzard, a global gaming company for $69 Billion. This acquisition will result in Microsoft’s active steps towards making metaverse a reality for its consumers.
Metaverse coins and tokens have been on a roll in 2021 and for good reason. Metaverses have the potential to provide an extremely connected and gamified world. Recently, a lot of mainstream companies are also getting into metaverse. Additionally, the interest of gaming community in metaverse has also piqued. This will help in democratization of metaverse to individuals across the globe. One such company is Microsoft. With the recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it has put its name of the list of companies betting on metaverses.
Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard Acquistion
There have been numerous rumours about Microsoft’s strategy to enter metaverse. Experts were not yet convinced of the strategy. However, Microsoft has recently announced the acquisition of a large gaming company, Activision Blizzard. Activision Blizzard is world’s leading games developer and publisher. Microsoft has signed a $69 Billion dollar deal to put the gaming in its pockets. It has been possible to to company strong quarterly results that even surprised the analysts. Soon after, Microsoft’s stock rose part $300. The company believes that this deal will help them grow their gaming business across multiple devices. The merger has made Microsoft the third-largest gaming company in the world, behind Sony and Tencent. Therefore there are a lot of implications of the Activision deal about metaverse becoming a reality across households.
What is Microsoft’s plan with Activision?
In the near future, Microsoft plans to boost its gaming business with the recent deal. The deal with Activision also includes the ownership of great gaming franchises like Warcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush. These could soon be added to Microsoft’s Xbox in 2023. Additionally, Activision has the technology and the human resources to build promising immersive virtual reality platforms. Therefore, in the long term we will see metaverse seeping into Microsoft’s wide range of products and services. Microsoft believes that the future will be more open with individuals building their own metaverses. Not just that, even organizations can step up their game. Therefore, we can expect to see more interactive virtual reality games from Microsoft. Perhaps starting with Xbox.
Currently, Microsoft has immersive products using 2D screens. Not just that, Mesh, a mixed-reality collaboration software will enable Microsoft to represent people as 3D avatars. Moreover, Microsoft is set to roll out Mesh is Microsoft Teams. This will enable social interactions with your avatars. Not just that, Microsoft’s Halo, Minecraft, and Flight Simulator have already changed into metaverses. To add to that, Microsoft also had Halolens with mixed reality. With Activision they can push the frontiers even further.
Facebook vs Microsoft
The future seems interesting. Now that Microsoft and Facebook both have signalled their interest in the Metaverse, it seems evident that the next peace of the puzzle will be around Metaverse. Both the companies have put their bets on different things. If social networking takes the lead then Facebook (Meta) will take the lead. However, if gaming becomes more prudent as it is now, then Microsoft will be far suited to win the war. Let’s wait and watch what the future has to offer for us.
