Microsoft buys game maker Activision Blizzard for about $70B

By MATT O’BRIEN
AP Technology Writer

Microsoft is paying the enormous sum of nearly $70 billion for Activision Blizzard, the maker of Candy Crush and Call of Duty, a deal that would immediately make it a larger video-game company than Nintendo while raising questions about the deal’s possible anti-competitive effects. The all-cash $68.7 billion deal will turn the maker of the Xbox gaming system into one of the world’s largest video game companies. It will also help Microsoft compete with tech rivals such as Meta — formerly Facebook — in creating immersive virtual worlds for both work and play. It also could be one of the priciest tech acquisitions in history.