Microsoft's $68.7 Billion Call of Duty Bet Needs 25 Years

Microsoft agreed in January 2022 to buy Activision Blizzard, the company behind Call of Duty, Candy Crush and Warcraft, for 68.7 billion dollars, fought the FTC, the UK and the EU for 633 days, and closed in October 2023. We do the math on the price: the payback at Activision's 2021 profit, the price per share, the first 262 days, the Xbox sales trend, the Game Pass price hike and the 3,200 Xbox job cuts announced in July 2026. Every figure comes from filings or major outlets, anything we calculated is labelled "our math", and this is not investment advice. Sources: Microsoft and SEC filings (2022 to July 2026), Activision's 2021 results, the Ninth Circuit opinion, the FTC dismissal order, the UK CMA and European Commission releases, the Xbox Wire memo of July 6, 2026, Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC, AP, The Verge, Fortune, Ars Technica, GameSpot, Kotaku, PC Gamer. Photo credits: Phil Spencer: eVRydayVR, CC0. Asha Sharma: Jasonglewis, CC0. Federal Trade Commission Building: ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0. Logos of Microsoft, Activision Blizzard, LinkedIn, Nintendo, PlayStation and Ubisoft: public domain. Xbox logo: CC BY SA 4.0. All via Wikimedia Commons. Logos are trademarks of their owners, shown for news commentary. Some scenes are illustrative AI generated visuals, which are depictions and not real footage. No generated faces of named people appear in the film.