Software giant Microsoft made one of its boldest steps towards expanding its infancies in the online space with its announcement of a US$69.8 billion deal on Tuesday.

The acquisition accelerates the company’s growth into the gaming business across mobile, console, and online, which advances its position to the third most valuable company by revenue, behind Tencent Holdings and Sony.

More importantly, it brings popular titles such as Call of Duty, Spiderman, and James Bond under its Xbox pass.

“Extending our horizon a bit, this transaction will make our approach to the consumer metaverse even stronger,” Spencer said in a call with investors on Tuesday. “That’s because our vision of the metaverse is based on intersecting global communities rooted in strong franchises. A big part of that is the fact that mobile is the biggest category of gaming, and it’s an area where we’ve not had a major presence before,” CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer said in a statement.

Microsoft has plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into its Game Pass subscription package. The Pass currently has over 25 million subscribers, and the company hopes that Activision Blizzard’s nearly 400 million monthly active players will add to the subscriber count.

The deal is a major blow to competitor Sony and its gaming offerings on its PlayStation counsels, where gamers of the console may be limited in the games they have access to forced switch to the X box side.

Shares for the stock rose close to 70 billion following the announcements.