In mid-January, Microsoft (MSFT 5.59%) announced its plans to acquire troubled video game company Activision Blizzard (ATVI +0.00%) in a blockbuster $68.7 billion deal. In this episode of "The Gaming Show" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on Jan. 31, Motley Fool analyst Jon Quast and Fool.com contributor Jose Najarro discuss why joining the tech juggernaut could be the perfect move for Activision.
Jon Quast: Talking about Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard, not just the biggest video game acquisition of all time, the biggest acquisition of all time, wasn't it? Very, very big at over 60 billion. After Microsoft announces this acquisition, Blizzard announces a new game. It's a game that doesn't even have a title yet, it is a survival game, is all it says, unannounced survival game. It says here on the press release page, it says, "Every story needs a teller, and every world needs builders. What if that could be you?" It is a pitch trying to hire artists, designers, engineers for this unannounced survival game. The timing is very interesting after the announced acquisition from Microsoft, because part of the speculation here with Microsoft is that they are really positioning themselves for the metaverse and for having this huge interactive platform. I don't know, is this maybe tipping their hand a little bit to where they're going with their whole gaming division?
Jose Najarro: To me, one of my actually favorite things about this acquisition of Activision to Microsoft, I think it was the best thing to ever happened to Activision, actually. Because they kept getting hit with all this negative press with what was happening within the company. I think they were losing a nice amount of talent and there were some talents that didn't want to go and work for Activision with everything that was happening within the company. They probably didn't want to associate themselves with it. Now with Activision being part of Microsoft, I think that now people are not going to be like, "I've worked for Activision," they're going to be like, "I work for Microsoft." I do believe that brings more positivity in that context. It's probably going to drive more talent. I did find it a bit weird that Activision is starting a new game. One of their main concepts was that they were just going to focus on their big players: World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch. I don't think Activision has actually released any new games outside of their main franchises in a long while. So that was pretty interesting. But they are super strong, World of Warcraft is a game that I think it's on their 20-year anniversary. I think if there was ever a metaverse, World of Warcraft would probably be one of the best places. They do have the technology behind it. I think now they're using that, "Hey, we're part of Microsoft" -- well, hopefully, they'd be part of Microsoft if everything gets approved -- "come work for us, we're changing our whole work environment, and you're going to enjoy working here."
