Det er omtrent et år siden at Microsoft slog fast at de havde en intention om at købe Activision Blizzard, og siden da er der kommet en del opposition imod handlen i både England og i USA, og vi afventer fortsat om EU's Magrethe Vestager ligeledes vil opponere imod handlen.
Men spørger du Phil Spencer, så er han mere sikker i sin sag nu, end han har været tidligere. I et interview slår han fast at han er "more confident now":
"Given a year ago, for me, I didn't know anything about the process of doing an acquisition like this. The fact that I have more insight, more knowledge about what it means to work with the different regulatory boards, I'm more confident now than I was a year ago, simply based on the information I have and the discussions that we've been having."
Han forklarer yderligere hvorfor at aftalen bliver en god ting for spilbranchen, og forbrugerne, generelt:
"When we announced a year ago, we talked about an 18-month timeframe. We're 12 months into that. I think we continue to stay focused on getting the deal closed. I think we can do some amazing things together with the teams at Activision-Blizzard-King on the mobile side, and collaborating them with new creative and new ways to deliver their content. And us learning a lot from the work that those teams do in mobile, which is a space that we just don't have a lot of expertise as Xbox, but also is the largest gaming platform in the world.
So my confidence remains high. We're actively working with the regulatory boards around the world that need to approve for this, and it's been a learning experience for me. A lot of time spent, a lot of travel, a lot of conversations, but they're conversations where I get to talk about our industry and the work that we do and why we do it. I think the more regulators are informed about what gaming is, how the business runs, who the players are, and what our aspiration is as Team Xbox is just a good thing for the industry itself."
Naturligvis skal Spencer til en vis grad udvise selvsikkerhed omkring aftalen, og det grundlag den er bygget på, men hvad tænker du om sagen? Går handlen igennem?