On Friday, in light of Microsoft’s revised structuring of the $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal last month, Britain’s antitrust regulator cleared the merger.
The deal, which is to be closed on October 18th, was previously extended by Microsoft by three months in its efforts to acquire British approval.
In January 2022, Microsoft first announced its decision to buy Activision Blizzard, a company well-known for games like “Call of Duty”, “World of Warcraft,”, and “Candy Crush”. However, the proposed $69 billion acquisition plan was met with reluctance from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Board over concerns about Microsoft monopolising the cloud gaming industry.
In response to the UK’s reluctance, Microsoft said that it would sell the streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment SA, a leading global video game publisher.
Russ Mould, the Investment Director at AJ Bell, said that:
“Having to sell Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft appears to have been a price Microsoft is prepared to stomach—even if it means they won’t be able to make blockbuster franchises Call of Duty and World of Warcraft Exclusives on its Xbox Cloud Gaming service.”
“If this genuinely protects consumers, then the CMA deserves some credit for holding the line under considerable pressure from a multi-trillion-dollar business,”, he added.