It has been a journey of ups and downs when it comes to Microsoft‘s pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a US$68.7 billion deal, but a major step has been made today in the United Kingdom. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has finally approved the takeover, albeit with some caveats.
“The new deal will stop Microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming as this market takes off, preserving competitive prices and services for UK cloud gaming customers,” an official statement said on Friday.
The cloud gaming issues in question will see the acquisition go through but without cloud gaming rights. Instead, the cloud rights of Activision games will go to French game publisher Ubisoft.
“It will allow Ubisoft to offer Activision’s content under any business model, including through multigame subscription services. It will also help to ensure that cloud gaming providers will be able to use non-Windows operating systems for Activision content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency,” the CMA said previously.
This decision by the CMA marks a huge win for Microsoft, especially as it represents the biggest hurdle to the deal following approvals in other regions including the EU. However, a fight is still being in the U.S., where the Federal Trade Commission is still attempting to block the sale from going through.
Although a positive outcome was achieved in the end, the CMA was not entirely satisfied with how the tech giant had behaved throughout the saga.
“Businesses and their advisors should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA,” Sarah Cardell, CEO of the CMA, said. “Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work. Dragging out proceedings in this way only wastes time and money.”
It remains to be seen if the FTC opposition will have any bearing on the deal, but for now, it seems like a game-changing business move is going to go through after all.
Jake is a full-time trophy hunter and achievement gatherer on consoles, and part-time Steam Sale victim. He has a thing for Batman and awesome statues, and running out of space for both. Send help.
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