Microsoft has expressed interest in buying Warner Bros’ gaming unit, The Information reported , citing two people familiar with the matter.
Warner Bros parent AT&T was discussing a sale of its Interactive Entertainment gaming division that owns popular videogame Mortal Kombat for a deal that could be worth about $4 billion, CNBC reported last month.
Exclusive: Microsoft has expressed interest in acquiring the games division of Warner Bros., the publisher behind popular game franchises based on Batman, Harry Potter and other characters.https://t.co/feERbOnW4o
— The Information (@theinformation) July 6, 2020
Microsoft might be looking to scoop up WB Games, the studio responsible for publishing games like Batman: Arkham Knight, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Mortal Kombat 11, and others. A sale isn’t imminent, according to the people, as AT&T is still weighing how to handle its $154 billion in debt. This debt comes from the 2018 acquisition of Time Warner, now known as WarnerMedia, which includes companies like Crunchyroll, DC Comics, HBO, WB Games, and a host of other subsidies.
In June, Microsoft said it was throwing in the towel on its livestream gaming platform Mixer and teaming up with Facebook to better compete with rivals like Amazon-owned Twitch. Microsoft Mixer will be shuttered on July 22, the tech giant said in a statement.
“It became clear that the time needed to grow our own livestreaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences that Microsoft and Xbox want to deliver for gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform,” the Mixer team said.