Microsoft among potential buyers for Activision Blizzard
Could Halo and Call of Duty one day be made under the same roof? Reuters reports that Vivendi has enlisted the help of a bank to speak with potential buyers for Activision Blizzard, and the list includes Microsoft, Time Warner, Tencent, and a group of private equity firms.
"It's nothing official yet, but they've asked a bank to go and talk to possible buyers for Activision," a source close to Vivendi's board told the news agency.
Vivendi presently owns a 60 percent stake in Activision Blizzard, and stands to raise close to $10 billion by offloading the company, the sources said.
While Microsoft has the capital to purchase Activision Blizzard, the source told Reuters the Seattle technology giant is currently focused on building its next-generation 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.
As for Tencent, earlier this month, Activision Blizzard announced a deal with the Chinese company to bring Call of Duty: Online to China as a free-to-play game. However, a banker speaking to Reuters believes Tencent taking full ownership of Microsoft would be a "big step" because of the companies' varying business models.
"[Activision Blizzard] have two big franchises, Call of Duty on the console side and World of War Craft 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," said the unnamed banker.
As of press time, neither Activision Blizzard, Microsoft, nor Tencent had responded to GameSpot's requests for comment.
Despite Activision Blizzard's success with the Call of Duty series and World of Warcraft, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter suggested in June that Vivendi might not have many suitors for the game maker.
"The problem is there are no readily apparent buyers for Activision," Pachter said at the time. "The only option left to Vivendi is to lever up Activision's balance sheet and pay out all of its cash as a dividend, then spin the company off."
Call of Chief: Master Warfare?
Originally Posted by OmegaFenix
! 
