Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Activision deal: "Very, very confident that we'll come out"

Despite the ongoing scrutiny of competition watchdogs and the Phase 2 investigation UK’s antitrust regulator initiated, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella told Bloomberg in a recent interview that he is confident the Activision Blizzard deal will be approved, saying, “Of course, any acquisition of this size will go through scrutiny, but we feel very, very confident that we’ll come out.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says he’s confident regulators will approve of the deal to buy Activision for $69 billion.

Speaking with @EmilyChangTV he says Sony, the number one player in the gaming industry, has already made several recent acquisitions https://t.co/EO9g0BHMcQ pic.twitter.com/G5EwrXbI0t

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) September 22, 2022

Nadella’s comment came out amid Sony’s continuous contradiction of the deal. A week ago, Sony said that “by giving Microsoft control of Activision games like Call of Duty, this deal would have major negative implications for gamers and the future of the gaming industry.”

Microsoft, however, seemed to grow more annoyed by Sony’s persistent protests about the acquisition, especially after PlayStation chief Jim Ryan said that Microsoft’s deal with Sony to keep Call of Duty on the platform for additional years “was inadequate on many levels and failed to take account of the impact on our gamers.”

“It makes zero business sense for Microsoft to remove Call of Duty from PlayStation given its market leading console position,” Microsoft stated.

Now, Nadella faced the public and again stressed Microsoft’s goal even after the full approval of different regulators for the acquisition deal.

“For us in gaming, we have one goal, which is to bring more games to more gamers on all platforms and provide more choice for publishers everywhere and developers everywhere,” Nadella told Bloomberg. “And so everything that we are doing with our content, with our cloud and community really is about driving that choice and that opportunity.”

The CEO also said that Microsoft is “number four, number five, depending on how you count in gaming” and that “the number one player” is Sony. He also recalled Sony’s acquisition of three other companies, implying the question of why the company wants to hinder the Activision deal even though it is also doing the same. “So if this is about competition, let us have competition,” Nadella ended.