Is this the real reason that Xbox is buying Activision? (pic: King)
Phil Spencer has said Xbox will be ‘untenable’ unless it makes inroads into mobile gaming, in part by buying Candy Crush maker King.
Although it’s called Activision Blizzard, the behemoth American publisher that Microsoft is busy trying to acquire is actually three distinct publishers in one: Activision, Blizzard Entertainment, and mobile company King.
King hasn’t been mentioned much since the acquisition was first announced but suddenly Xbox boss Phil Spencer is claiming that it’s the whole reason behind the deal.
Spencer pointed out that while video game and PC revenues are largely flat, mobile gaming continues to expand and yet Microsoft has almost no involvement in that industry.
‘I don’t think anybody needs that quote from us [about a regulator describing Microsoft as a minor player in PC and mobile games] to understand how irrelevant we are in mobile. Anybody who picks up their phone and decides to play a game would see that on their own,’ said Spencer.
‘Our trials and tribulations over the last five, six years in PC gaming are well documented and we continue to work at it. I love the work that the Xbox app team has been on, and our PC studio is doing great work on PC, but it takes time.’
Blizzard would help considerably with PC gaming, but speaking to The Verge, Spencer made it clear that: ‘If we don’t gain relevancy as a gaming brand – we’re not alone in seeing this – over time, the business will become kind of untenable, for any of us.
‘If we’re not able to find customers on phones, on any screen that someone wants to play on, you really are going to get segmented to a niche part of gaming that running a global business will become very challenging.’
‘Us’ was clearly a reference to Sony, who also have little involvement in mobile gaming. Although they have seemed to lose interest in recent years, Nintendo is the most active in the field, although Spencer notes that, unlike Sony, they have not registered any complaints about the Activision Blizzard acquisition.
When asked whether he was buying the ‘Candy Crush company’ rather than the Call Of Duty one, Spencer answered: ‘Absolutely’.
For the last several months, Spencer has been trying to convince everyone that the Activision Blizzard acquisition will not give them an unfair advantage and that actually they’re the underdogs when going up against Sony.
As various countries, including the UK and EU, have made it clear they want to investigate further, Spencer has continued to try and allay fears, saying in a separate interview that he would be happy to confirm that Call Of Duty will remain multiformat for years to come – saying he wasn’t going to ‘pull the rug from underneath PlayStation 7’s legs.’
Whether the different investigations are convinced by Spencer’s rhetoric remains to be seen, with the deal unlikely to get approval until well into next year, no matter what happens.
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Phil Spencer has said Xbox will be ‘untenable’ unless it makes inroads into mobile gaming, in part by buying Candy Crush maker King.
