Microsoft‘s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved by the UK’s Competition And Markets Authority (CMA) – overcoming the last obstacle to the buyout.
After the announcement of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard’s concession to sell the streaming rights of the latter’s games to Ubisoft for 15 years, the CMA provisionally approved the acquisition.
However, it stated that there were still “residual concerns” that needed to be resolved with one more investigation. Now that this new analysis is over, it is expected that the acquisition will be completed soon.
“In August this year Microsoft made a concession that would see Ubisoft, instead of Microsoft, buy Activision’s cloud gaming rights,” explained the CMA in a statement supplied to press.
“This new deal will put the cloud streaming rights (outside the European Economic Area) for all of Activision’s PC and console content produced over the next 15 years in the hands of a strong and independent competitor with ambitious plans to offer new ways of accessing that content.
“As a result of this concession, the Competition And Markets Authority agreed to look afresh at the deal and launched a new investigation in August. That investigation has completed today with the Competition And Markets Authority clearing this narrower transaction.
“The new deal will stop Microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming as this market takes off, preserving competitive prices and services for United Kingdom cloud gaming customers.”
“It will allow Ubisoft to offer Activision’s content under any business model, including through multigame subscription services,” it added. “It will also help to ensure that cloud gaming providers will be able to use non-Windows operating systems for Activision content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.”
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, shared his gratitude that the CMA approved of the acquisition at long last. “We have now crossed the final regulatory hurdle to close this acquisition, which we believe will benefit players and the gaming industry worldwide,” he said in a post to X.
Once the acquisition is finalised, Microsoft will own Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios. Within these are the rights to Call Of Duty, Diablo, Candy Crush, World Of Warcraft and more.
Appreciably, this will add a lot of influential titles and series under Microsoft’s umbrella, having secured studios like Arkane, Bethesda Softworks, id Software, MachineGames and Tango Gameworks in 2021.
In other gaming news, publisher 505 Games shared one of the tracks from the anticipated cyberpunk action game Ghostrunner 2, produced by returning composer Daniel Deluxe.
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