with the Federal Trade Commission it seemed obvious that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard was going to go through, especially as the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK immediately announced it would re-enter negotiations.to buy Activision Blizzard, not over concerns that they would gain a monopoly by owning such a major publisher but because of the additional advantage it would give Xbox in terms of cloud gaming.
This was also the primary concern of the EU, but the CMA would have been aware, even before the information was , that Xbox’s current investment in cloud gaming is close to zero – which may have further influenced their decision.sold the rights to its cloud gaming business‘The sale of Activision’s cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft substantially addresses previous concerns and opens the door to the deal being cleared,’ said the CMA.
‘While the restructured deal is materially different to the previous transaction and substantially addresses most concerns, the CMA has limited residual concerns that certain provisions in the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft could be circumvented, terminated, or not enforced,’ said the CMA‘To address these concerns, Microsoft has offered remedies to ensure that the terms of the sale of Activision’s rights to Ubisoft are enforceable by the CMA,’ they add.
The CMA is now ‘consulting on the remedies’, which will continue until October 6, before making a final decision. Assuming that comes out in Microsoft’s favour, it now seems likely the whole deal will go through this year, and before the October 18 deadline set by Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.