Activision Blizzard was not Microsoft’s first choice for acquisition, as it seems they were interested in Hades developer Supergiant too.
The court case between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had a day off yesterday and yet still there have been revelations from it, with internal Microsoft documents revealing who the company was interested in buying after Bethesda but before it settled on Activision Blizzard.
The documents show that Xbox boss Phil Spencer asked his superiors at Microsoft for their permission to start talks with Sega Sammy and Bungie.
Spencer offered the following, somewhat unrecognisable, description of Sega in November 2020: ‘We believe that Sega has built a well-balanced portfolio of games across segments with global geographic appeal and will help us accelerate Xbox Game Pass both on and off-console.’
That’s a funny way of saying they only really publish Sonic The Hedgehog and PC strategy games, although he’s probably also including Atlus in that assessment, along with their popular Persona series.
‘The global appeal of Sega’s beloved IP will help expand Xbox Game Pass’s reach to new audiences around the world, most notably in Asia, where localized content is critical to success,’ adds Spencer.
Sega themselves don’t make anything that’s particularly popular in Japan – not Sonic and certainly not PC games – but if he’s talking primarily about Atlus he never mentions them by name. So either they weren’t included in the deal or he thinks Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has never heard of them.
Microsoft’s interest in Sega predates Spencer and even the Xbox itself, as the corporation was initially interested in buying the Japanese veteran as their first route into the games industry, in the late 90s, before deciding to do things themselves.
The documents don’t reveal how far this second approach got, but in a subsequent document from April 2021 Sega were still listed as a possible acquisition target, along with Bungie, Zynga, and Io Interactive.
Bungie was recently bought by Sony, so they were obviously open to the idea of being bought, but probably not by Microsoft, considering that Microsoft used to own them, before Bungie went back to being independent in 2007.
Mobile and casual gamer developer Zynga was bought by Rockstar owner Take-Two Interactive last year, while Io Interactive remain independent. It’s unclear why Microsoft didn’t acquire Io, but after their bad experience with Square Enix perhaps they just didn’t want to be bought.
Other companies that Microsoft considered, according to further documents highlighted by The Verge, include indie publisher Thunderful, Hades developer Supergiant Games, Pokémon Go maker Niantic, and mobile developers Playrix and Scopely.
Microsoft has occasionally claimed that the main reason they were interested in Activision Blizzard is because Candy Crush Saga maker King is also part of the same company, although they only rarely emphasise this fact and, as you can see, never bought any other mobile developers.
The one thing the documents don’t make clear is why Microsoft lost interest in these companies and at what point they fixated on Activision Blizzard.
It is known that Spencer first contacted Activision Blizzard once their share price started to fall, following their toxic workplace scandal – which lowered the price they could be bought for.
It seems possible that before that they were thought to be too expensive and weren’t seriously considered as part of Microsoft’s plans.
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