Newly surfaced internal emails and documents from Microsoft showed that it had several game developers and publishers it was planning to acquire before deciding on its plan to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.
The Verge has released the contents of an internal email sent from Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of Xbox, to company CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood. It can be seen in this email that Spencer is seeking “Strategy Approval” from his bosses for his strategy to acquire Sega.
“We believe Sega has built a well-balanced portfolio of games in segments with global geographic appeal and will help us accelerate Xbox Game Pass both on and off console,” said part of Spencer’s email.
There is no news about whether the talks between Sega and Microsoft have taken place. However, another internal document The Verge published in April 2021 listed a number of other developers and publishers that Microsoft was considering at least buying.
One of the most notable developers on Microsoft’s list was Bungie. Microsoft actually bought this developer in 2000, securing the first Halo game as an exclusive launch game for the first Xbox console in 2001.
In 2007, Bungie became an independent game developer once again, but continued to develop new Halo games for Microsoft until Halo: Reach was released. While Microsoft held the Halo IP rights, Bungie went ahead and developed the Destiny game series. Sony bought Bungie in 2022.
Other game developers and publishers on the list include Hitman creator IO Interactive, Hades developer Supergiant Games, Pokemon Go creator Niantic and smaller publishers like Thunderful, Playrix and Scopley.
Also, this list includes Zynga. Zynga was later acquired by Take-Two Interactive.
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