Activision Blizzard Joins Microsoft

Yep, it finally happened - Activision Blizzard has been bought by Microsoft.

I spoke about this some time last year, but it's actually taken until now for the acquisition to entirely happen. This was because the UK constantly blocked the process over concerns about the acquisition stagnating competition between Microsoft and its competitors. It was a pretty woolly argument, if you ask me, but it certainly delayed the whole thing.

But now the acquisition has finally gone through, as announced by Microsoft, themselves:

So, what does this mean? Well, the Crash Bandicoot franchise is published by Activision. With them now being owned by Microsoft, Crash is effectively now a Microsoft property. Strange, thinking how Crash started on the Sony PlayStation.

This could mean a whole variety of things. Word on the grapevine has been that there have been no official plans for Crash Bandicoot following the mass online battle platformer game, Crash Team Rumble. If that is assumed as true, then Microsoft may indeed have other plans with the franchise.

One thing is for certain - Microsoft were pretty adamant about not pulling other developers off other projects to work on titles that weren't necessarily in their skillset (such as Crash Team Rumble developers, Toys For Bob, being pulled off that title to work on Call of Duty for some time). Microsoft have also confirmed that they are interested in keeping the Activision titles cross-platform, which is promising (for now).

The ultimate outcome for Crash remains to be seen, but for now, it could mean some positives for Crash titles being more instantly available on PCs more, as not only did Activision stunt the release of the N.Sane Trilogy and Crash Bandicoot 4 on Steam, but poor ol' Crash Team Racing never saw an official Steam release (much to the woe of many).

What will be in Crash's future? We shall see. We shall definitely see.