Microsofts Acquisition of Activision Blizzard Expected to Be Approved in the UK
Summary
Today marks the beginning of a decisive week for Microsofts proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the $68.7 billion deal (by far the biggest ever attempted in the gaming industry) that rocked the entertainment and technology world when it was first announced in January 2022. Shortly after that, they launched a deeper probe into the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and as recently as two months ago, prospects looked dire for Microsoft as the CMA said in a press release that the deal could harm UK gamers, both in the burgeoning cloud market and in the established console market, where Microsoft would have reason to make the Call of Duty franchise a partial or total exclusive to Xbox consoles. In a surprising turn of events, the CMA did a U-turn last month on the competition concerns related to the console market, admitting that it would be heavily damaging for Microsoft to remove Call of Duty from the PlayStation platforms. That decision didnt directly affect the cloud market concerns, but Microsoft has been making strides in that regard with four separate 10-year deals to bring all its games (including those of Activision Blizzard should the deal be approved) to cloud gaming services like GeForce NOW, Boosteroid, Ubitus, and UK Internet service provider EE. The latter will also have an eye on the UK, where on Wednesday the Competition and Markets Authority is due to finally rule on whether to block the technology companys $69bn takeover of games maker Activision Blizzard, although this is likely to prove a damp squib as the CMA is expected to support it.