At a sky-high price of $68.7 billion, Microsoft shocked the entire gaming industry by announcing the acquisition of Activision Blizzard last month. Since the news came to light, many players, media, and peers have questioned whether regulators would agree to approve this massive deal, which would give Microsoft control over popular IPs such as Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch and more franchise.
The acquisition has been reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but Microsoft chief Satya NaDELLa believes the company doesn’t need to make concessions to pass the deal. After Nadella’s interview with the Financial Times, the outlet wrote
Nadella believes Microsoft shouldn’t need to make any formal concessions to win regulatory approval for the deal, as it’s still too small to have an anticompetitive impact.
“Anyway, all the analysis we’re talking about now needs to be based on one starting point: ‘What category are we talking about, what structure are we talking about?’,” he said. “Even after this acquisition, we’re only third at best.” We are not very famous, and our market share is not high. In a highly fragmented game industry, we are just a small player.”
Right now, the market is fragmented, with many players from Sony to EA. Here are some of the biggest gaming companies and their market value.
EA: $37 billion
Take-Two Interactive: $25 billion, in partnership with Zynga.
Bandai Namco: $15 billion
Embracer Group: $15 billion
Ubisoft: $7 billion
Konami: $6 billion
Square Enix: $6 billion
Capcom: $5 billion
Sega: $4 billion
Even if Microsoft were to acquire other companies, there would be plenty of publishers to challenge its dominance in the space. Sony’s PlayStation division now generates the most revenue of any console maker. According to a new report from GameSpot, the PlayStation will bring in $24.87 billion in 2021, compared with $16.28 billion for the Xbox.
