While the query of why Activision Blizzard determined to merge with Microsoft is straightforward sufficient to reply given the corporate’s present predicament, the explanation behind the latter’s determination to accumulate the controversial firm nonetheless stays a thriller… till right this moment.

In an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer revealed that the choice to accumulate Activision Blizzard was primarily pushed by Microsoft’s need to safe a foothold within the highly-profitable cell gaming market. Activision Blizzard, as you most likely know, additionally owns King, the creator of the extraordinarily common Candy Crush cell puzzle recreation. Blizzard Entertainment’s portfolio of high-grossing PC video games got here second on the checklist.

“The biggest gaming platform on the planet is mobile phones,” Spencer stated. “One and a half billion people play on mobile phones. And I guess, regretfully as Microsoft, it’s not a place where we have a native platform as gaming. Coming from console and PC, we don’t have a lot of creative capability that has built hit mobile games.”

“One thing about the video game space is if you’ve been around maybe too long, you know most of the creators out there. So you kind of know teams that could be a good fit in terms of what we were trying to do,” he added. “But we really started the discussions, internally at least, on Activision Blizzard around the capability they had on mobile and then PC with Blizzard.”

Spencer additionally talked concerning the historical past of Microsoft Gaming and the way it was initially began as a protection towards consoles taking up the PC market. He additionally touched on the current controversies and scrutiny surrounding large tech firms and the regulation of giant offers like their ongoing merger with Activision Blizzard.

“Big deals should be scrutinized,” stated Spencer. “I think that’s the role of regulators [and] why they’re in place. I feel good about the progress that we’ve been making, asking good, hard questions about: Ok, what’s our intent? If we play it out over five years is this constricting the market?”

On the subject of constricting markets, Spencer says that earlier antitrust allegations towards the corporate taught them a lesson that has caught with them till right this moment as one of many greatest advocates of cross-platform play.

You can take a look at Emily Chang’s full interview with Phil Spencer within the video under.