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This week in racing game news:
Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard for a staggering $68.7 billion
It’s acquisition season, baby! You thought iRacing picking up Monster Games earlier this month was a big deal? Pshaw! Insignificant. How about Take-Two purchasing Zynga a week later in what was, at the time, the largest gaming acquisition ever? Big deal, right? HA! That’s so last week. No, today we’re talking about Microsoft deciding to completely blow up the current gaming landscape when it announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard for a ludicrous $68.7 billion. This makes it, by far, the largest gaming acquisition ever as well as Microsoft’s largest acquisition ever. To put that number into perspective, Disney acquired all of Star Wars (and the rest of Lucasfilm to boot), which included movies, games, television, merchandise and more, for a paltry $4 billion. The Microsoft purchase outdoes that one by 17 times. “Call of Duty” must be a hell of a moneymaker, huh?
What does this mean for racing game enthusiasts? Well, in the immediate future, probably not a whole lot. Activision Blizzard isn’t necessarily known for an overflowing library of driving games, although there’s now a great chance that games like “Crash Team Racing” and perhaps even some classic NASCAR racers will be coming to Game Pass for Xbox and PC, but even that’s only speculation. Regardless of direct, short-term impact, this deal will assuredly indirectly affect all gamers over the coming years. We’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds as well as keep an eye on how Sony responds to the move from its biggest competitor in the space.
“Hot Wheels Unleashed” has unveiled the Spongebob Squarepants Racing Season
Just in case you thought “Hot Wheels Unleashed” couldn’t get any more nostalgic, the team recently unveiled a Spongebob-themed event to prove you wrong. The new “Racing Season” includes both free and premium content for players, with the big-ticket items being vehicles based on Plankton, Sandy Cheeks, Mr. Krabs, Patrick, Squidward and of course the yellow, porous fry cook himself. The paid portion of the DLC will get you five of those six vehicles as well as 12 new customization elements for your in-game basement and three new elements for your Unleashed profile. If you ask us, they absolutely nailed the vehicle designs, and if this is the level of quality we can expect from every collaboration, we’re pretty excited to see what’s next. The new season started earlier this week and the premium content will be available for purchase for just $5 until March 24.
“Gran Turismo 7” has released a Daytona International Speedway gameplay video
The “GT7” team has been doing a great job of keeping players hyped for the official release by slowly trickling out a handful of exciting teaser videos, with the latest being one of our best looks yet at the game. Last week, the devs released a gameplay video of a race on the Daytona International Speedway and as you’d no doubt expect, it looks stunning. There isn’t a whole lot to say about this one, other than to say March 4 can’t come soon enough. Check out the new teaser for yourself, below.