French retailer warns customers to "choose their machine carefully" after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard
"Notice to gamers, Microsoft has bought Activision!"
A French supermarket has put up a notice in its gaming section to advise prospective buyers that Microsoft now owns Call of Duty publisher, Activision.
It comes in the wake of Microsoft's shock announcement that it plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, prompting this retailer to seemingly notify customers shopping for PS5 hardware to "choose [their console] machine carefully".
As spotted by VGC, the notice - which says "Notice to gamers, Microsoft has bought Activision! Choose your machine carefully", with the handwritten addendum "(Call of Duty)" so buyers are aware what franchise the acquisition impacts - appeared in French retailer Cora, which reportedly has 60 stores in France, and a further 20 in Romania, Belgium and Luxembourg.
It's not yet clear if this is the actions of a single store or a company-wide mandate, but it nonetheless intimates the impact the buyout may have on the wider industry and consumer behaviour.
Microsoft announced on 18th January its plans to acquire Call of Duty and World of Warcraft maker Activision Blizzard in an astonishing, industry-shaking deal worth $68.7bn. The deal is expected to be approved in 2023.
As Tom explained at the time, the monumental acquisition - by far the largest ever seen in video games, and the largest in Microsoft's history - means Microsoft will own blockbuster franchises such as Call of Duty, Spyro, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk from Activision, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Hearthstone and StarCraft from Blizzard, as well as Candy Crush from mobile arm King.