Britain finally cleared Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Friday after it forced the Xbox owner to sell the steaming rights to games including 'Call of Duty' to address its competition concerns.
Britain finally cleared Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Friday after it forced the Xbox owner to sell the steaming rights to games including "Call of Duty" to address its competition concerns. The deal was blocked in April by the Competition and Markets Authority which said it could give the U.S. computing giant a stranglehold over the nascent cloud gaming market.
It said "sticking to its guns" in the face of criticism from the merging companies had delivered an outcome that was better for competition, consumers and economic growth.The approval paves the way for Microsoft to close the deal by Oct. 18 after it extended the deadline to secure UK approval. Microsoft announced the deal in early 2022, aiming to boost its growth in console, mobile, PC, and cloud gaming to compete with the likes of Tencent as well as PlayStation-owner Sony.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said the regulator had "delivered a clear message to Microsoft that the deal would be blocked unless they comprehensively addressed our concerns and we stuck to our guns on that." "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."
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