The European Commission, which is scheduled to decide on the deal by April 25, is not expected to demand that Microsoft sell assets to win its approval, the people said.
In addition to the licensing deals for rivals, Microsoft may also have to offer other behavioural remedies to allay concerns of other parties than Sony, one of the people said. Such remedies typically refer to the future conduct of the merged company. In response to the report, a spokesperson for Microsoft said that “our commitment to grant long-term 100% equal access to Call of Duty to Sony, Steam, NVIDIA, and others preserves the deal’s benefits to gamers and developers and increases competition in the market.” They added that the company was “committed to offering effective and easily enforceable solutions that address the European Commission’s concerns.
While Microsoft is seemingly set to clear the hurdle with the EU, it still faces similar potential blockages in the United Kingdom and the United States. The FTC in the U.S. officially