In an article today, Xbox boss Phil Spencer gave his perspective on the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft Group.

The short version is: Gaming is for everyone, everywhere.

Microsoft wants to make gaming accessible to billions of people, the article says. And the acquisition represents an important milestone towards that goal.

It said it knows that consoles are not the only way to play. The mobile gaming market is the fastest growing. And here, he said, they want to give gamers choice as well as developers. That’s to allow opportunities for innovation and growth.

“We love consoles, but we also know that they are not the only way to play games. The largest and fastest-growing segment of gaming today is mobile platforms. To reach the billions of gamers where they are, and regardless of what device they are playing on, we need to embrace choice. Giving gamers choice in how they want to play their games makes gaming more accessible and leads to larger, more vibrant gaming communities. Choice is also important for developers. Developers benefit from a variety of distribution and business models for their games. Choice creates opportunities for innovation and enables the industry to grow.”

The Game Pass model and cloud gaming via streaming to all devices will expand choice. And of course, they plan to bring game series from Activision Blizzard like Call of Duty, Diablo or Overwatch to Game Pass. This should also increase the respective communities and make the services more attractive.

“We’re expanding choice in two ways: by creating Game Pass, which gives players a subscription option, and by bringing more games to mobile platforms, including through our cloud game streaming technology. Subscription services like Game Pass make games more affordable and help gamers from around the world find their next favorite game. Game Pass gives developers the ability to offer more games to more players, not fewer. We intend to make Activision Blizzard’s popular game collection – including Overwatch, Diablo, and Call of Duty – available on Game Pass and grow these gaming communities. By providing even more value to gamers, we hope to further expand Game Pass and broaden its appeal to mobile and all connected devices.”

Microsoft needs new skills and, above all, experience to realize its goals. And it is the latter that Activision Blizzard’s teams offer with their games for mobile platforms. It is also hoped that players will play traditional console games from Activision Blizzard on other platforms via cloud game streaming.

On taking franchises like Call of Duty away from other platforms, Spencer said in the article:

“In doing that, we’re going to take a principled approach. We’ve heard that this deal could take franchises like Call of Duty away from where people are currently playing them. That’s why, as we’ve said before, we’re committed to making the same version of Call of Duty available on PlayStation on the same day the game launches elsewhere. We will continue to allow players to play together across platforms and devices. We know players will benefit from this approach because we did it with Minecraft, which continues to be available on multiple platforms and has expanded to even more platforms since Mojang joined Microsoft in 2014. As we expand our game store to new devices and platforms, we’ll make sure we do so in a way that protects developers’ ability to choose how they want to distribute their games.”

It concludes by saying that it respects and welcomes the questions emanating from regulators and will continue to work with them in a transparent and open manner. It is also believed that the merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will benefit the industry and gamers.