Nearly two years to the day that Microsoft announced that it would be buying Activision-Blizzard for $68.8 billion, the deal has been finalized. It's official: Microsoft now owns Crash Bandicoot, Diablo, Spyro the Dragon, Overwatch, Candy Crush, and many more. The acquisition was hotly contested by both the United States' Federal Trade Commission and United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority, but Microsoft altered the deal slightly, argued its case in court, and won. This deal solidifies Xbox as the third biggest gaming brand in the world, only behind Tencent and Sony.

According to Xbox's Phil Spencer, the next step is to bring many of Activision and Blizzard's game lineup to Xbox Game Pass.

Players have always been at the center of everything we do. And as we grow, we’ll continue to keep players at the heart of it all. We’ll continue to listen to your feedback, build a community where you can be yourself, where developers can do their best work, and continue to make really fun games. As promised, we will also continue to make more games available in more places – and that begins now by enabling cloud streaming providers and players to stream Activision Blizzard games in the European Economic Area, a commitment made to the European Commission. Today we start the work to bring beloved Activision, Blizzard, and King franchises to Game Pass and other platforms. We’ll share more about when you can expect to play in the coming months. We know you’re excited – and we are too.

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[mightymuffy]

They tried to resurrect Perfect Dark, they developed Viva Piñata, Kameo, Sea of Thieves, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Conker: Live & Reloaded...

Most of them bombed, so I don't really see how people see Microsoft as the big bad of an already sinking software house.

If all else, they gave them a second lease on life and burnt quite a lot of money on Rare to little return.

But what do I know.

Good point, they did at least try to bring IP back, I stand corrected!
Problem being of course half the Goldeneye/Perfect Dark team had already left and went off to do Timesplitters: half the Banjo Kazooie team had also already left and went on to do Yuka-Laylee or whatever the fukk it was called (or spelled hah!), yet half the people on here expected MS to wave a magic wand and bring the good Rare times back...
Clearly the rot had already set in by the time we got Star Fox Adventures: most of the talent at Rare had left by that point, and it showed..

 

[Fenthor92]

I can't wait to see WoW on gamepass or something like that