Microsoft to snap up Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard in £50.6bn deal

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterEsports is the biggest opportunity in TV that nobody’s talking about — yet.That’s the view from video game industry veterans who see esports — or the exploding world of live video gaming competitions, complete with crowds of virtual fans cheering them on — as poised to explode in the coming years.Riot Games and Activision Blizzard are among the gaming giants making big investments to juice the burgeoning market for esports TV rights deals. A new round of consolidation and fresh capital coming into gaming, as evidenced by Microsoft’s pending $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, will raise the stakes, as esports content is a clear growth engine for gaming.“We don’t necessarily see obstacles in front of us — we see opportunity,” Brandon Snow, head of Activision Blizzard esports, tells Variety.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that he doesn’t believe its acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be blocked by the US Federal Trade Commission.The deal, worth around £50billion, was announced on January 18 but earlier this week it was announced that the US Federal Trade Commission would be conducting an antitrust investigation after fears the acquisition would harm competition.Talking to the Financial Times, Nadella said that the deal would only place Microsoft as the third largest player in the video games industry behind Sony and Tencent. He also believes the fragmentation of the market would prevent it from ever gaining a monopoly.“At the end of the day, all the analysis here has to be done through a lens of what’s the category we’re talking about, and what about the market structure?” said Nadella.“Even post-this acquisition, we will be number three with a low teens (market) share, where even the highest player is also in the teens (for market) share.

Activision Blizzard that Infinity Ward is definitely working on Call Of Duty 2022.The rumours about the followup to Call Of Duty: Vanguard have been circulating since details about the project, codenamed Cortez, were datamined last September.It’s now been officially confirmed that the 2022 instalment of Call Of Duty will be developed by Infinity Ward, the studio behind Modern Warfare.​​“Development on this year’s premium and Warzone experiences is being led by Activision’s renowned Infinity Ward studio,” the company said in a press release. “The team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting.”Infinity Ward confirmed the news by taking to Twitter.

Activision Blizzard has announced more Warcraft and World Of Warcraft is coming, some of which in the form of mobile content.As part of the company’s fourth quarter earnings results, a handful of Warcraft announcements were made. This included news that “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World Of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.”There has been no other mention of what this content will be as of yet, but according to Activision Blizzard the franchise was going strong in 2021 thanks to the inclusion of both the modern and classic game.The company does also note that it “continued to increase our developer headcount in the fourth quarter and added hundreds of talented professionals in 2021,” despite the fact that major layoffs to the Raven Software quality assurance department took place at the end of last year.This led to a strike lasting over a month and the formation of a new union, the Game Workers Alliance, which Activision Blizzard appears to be actively attempting to quash at every turn.

Ian Evatt gave Morecambe credit for keeping hold of star striker Cole Stockton in the January transfer window as he wants the Bolton Wanderers travelling fans to create a positive atmosphere for his side.

Life in the Emmerdale village may have seemed slightly calmer since Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu) went into hiding after her horrific crimes were exposed. But soap fans know that’s all about the change now that the unhinged nurse is back in the Dales and out for revenge.

Microsoft is to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission over their proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard.News broke last month that Call of Duty and Overwatch developers Activision Blizzard were being acquired by Microsoft. But the deal isn’t actually set in stone yet, and now according to Bloomberg, the deal will see the FTC conduct an antitrust investigation over the Activision Blizzard acquisition.

A 24-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the racial abuse suffered by Ashley Cole during Man City’s FA Cup tie at Swindon Town.

Dennis Harvey Film CriticThe sense of a city as a complex, ailing ecosystem is rendered with unusual vividness in “All That Breathes.” Shaunak Sen’s documentary has no formal interviews, onscreen text or omniscient narrator to provide relevant stats on Delhi, where air pollution is reportedly twelve times worse than in Beijing, which ranks second on the global list. Instead, the environmental impact is felt on the microcosmic level of two resident brothers dedicated to urban bird rescue.

Anna Marie de la Fuente Chilean filmmaker Roberto Doveris’ “Phantom Project” vies for the top Tiger prize at the Rotterdam film festival’s online edition this year and leads a robust Chilean delegation in other sections of the festival. Co-produced by Doveris’ Niña Niño Films and Aura Sinclair’s Agencia Rekia (“La Isla de las Gaviotas”), “Phantom Project” (previously titled “Ghost Project”) has world premiered at the fest, which began Jan. 26 and wraps on Feb.

Julian Alvarez might already have realised he will not be given any special treatment as he prepares to sign for Manchester City during the January transfer window.

Blizzard studio head, Mike Ybarra, has told fans to “stay tuned” for more news on Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo.The news came via Twitter. When a Twitter user suggested that Blizzard should dedicate more of its time on existing products, Ybarra revealed more.In a tweet, Ybarra explained that “Blizzard is a big studio [with] talented and growing teams”. He continued by adding that “you’ll be hearing more on that from Warcraft and Overwatch“.

Call Of Duty: Warzone is in development, with the title apparently coming to Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC.According to a Bloomberg report about the future of Activision Blizzard following their acquisition by Microsoft, the next three Call Of Duty titles won’t be Xbox exclusives because of deals made before the purchase.Speaking to four people with “knowledge” of the deal, those titles include the next two instalments of Modern Warfare (with the first expected this year). “The deal also includes a planned new iteration of Call Of Duty Warzone.”The claim was backed up by “credible Call Of Duty leaker” Tom Henderson, who believes Warzone 2 will be released in 2023 alongside the second new iteration of Modern Warfare (currently being developed by Treyarch).Warzone 2 is literally that… Warzone 2.Current gen and PC only… No past weapon integrations etc.

The full extent of Manchester City’s investment in 21-year-old Argentina whizzkid Julian Alvarez have been revealed.

Lulu Wang, director of Awkwafina comedy drama The Farewell, and producer Dani Melia have launched their own production company and struck a first-look TV deal with Amazon.

which first reported the news, OAN’s contract with DirecTV expires in April. “We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” DirecTV said in a statement.In May 2020, some DirecTV customers complained online — and liberal commenters cheered — because of a mistaken belief that the provider had dropped OAN at the time.