Activision Blizzard deal makes Xbox care more about Candy Crush than Call of Duty

As Xbox continues to try and seal a deal with Activision Blizzard, everyone’s talking about the future of Call of Duty. However, Phil Spencer admitted that the hugely popular console game isn’t the main reason behind the potential merger. Candy Crush is the biggest piece of the Activision Blizzard puzzle as Xbox thinks about its approach to mobile gaming.

On The Verge’s Decoder Podcast (thanks VGC), Spencer was asked if the main driving force behind Xbox Activision Blizzard was really Candy Crush. “Of course, Call of Duty Mobile and Diablo Mobile aren’t in Candy Crush, other than that, they’re Activision and Blizzard,” Spencer replied.

The numbers Spencer was referring to were revealed by Activision Blizzard’s latest user base. The studio revealed that 368 million people played its games in the quarter ending September 2022. Of that 368 million, 240 million was brought to Activision Blizzard by Candy Crush developer King. That means King has more active users than the rest of Activision Blizzard’s affiliates combined.

Spencer readily admits that Xbox and Microsoft currently don’t have much of a presence on mobile, and he thinks that needs to change. Referring to Microsoft’s citations to regulators describing the company as a small player on mobile, Spencer told Decoder: “Anyone who picks up a phone and decides to play a game does.” See for yourself.

The focus on Call of Duty throughout the saga, and especially PlayStation’s fear of the series becoming an Xbox exclusive, appears to be the main reason Xbox paid the studio nearly $70 billion. In the same interview, Spencer promised PlayStation (again) that Xbox would never make Call of Duty a console exclusive. The Activision Blizzard lawsuit also played an important role in the context of the merger, as Microsoft this week pledged to file an annual sexual harassment report following its investigation.