Microsoft to buy Activision-Blizzard?

Written by Eric Yee Wednesday, 11 July 2012 13:40

Last week news of Vivendi's desire to sell it's majority stake in Activision was made public. This week it appears that a short list of potential buyers has been revealed by an unnamed source.

Reuters is reporting that Vivendi has enlisted the help of a bank to help broker the sale of Activision-Blizzard. On behalf of Vivendi this bank has been speaking with Microsoft, Time Warner, Tencent, and a group of private equity firms.

A source close to Vivendi's board told Reuters " It's nothing official yet, but they've asked a bank to go and talk to possible buyers for Activision." While Microsoft is financially in a position to purchase Activision the same source say that the technology giant is currently focused on building the next Xbox.

"They probably don't want to distract themselves too much, but they are the ones who, if they want to stay in games, would think about owning some of these big franchises, not just providing the consoles," the source said.

While Activision may have struck up a deal to publish Call of Duty Online in Asia with Tencent, the source believes that an acquisition would be a big step due to the varying business models.

"[Activision Blizzard] have two big franchises, Call of Duty on the console side and World of WarCraft on the MMOG (massively multiplayer online game) side. And China is not a big market for console businesses; online games are much bigger for various reasons."

Keep it locked to Xbox Edge, we'll keep you posted as the story develops.