Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition approved by EU Commission

The European Commission has decided to approve Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In approving Activision’s acquisition, it does not consider that the merger will harm its competitors.

The purchase agreement between Activision Blizzard and Microsoft, valued at almost $69 billion, has been scrutinized by international competition authorities. As rumored, the European Commission has responded today to the investigation. The response has been positive: European regulators believe the merger between these two companies will not harm competition.

According to the European Commission’s response, the level of console competition would not be significantly harmed.

European Commission investigation into Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision

One of the main objectives of the European Commission’s investigation was to determine whether the acquisition could harm rivals such as Sony. Above all, whether the popular Call of Duty franchise would stop being exclusive to Xbox consoles.

However, according to the text published by the European Commission, they believe that Microsoft has no interest in refusing to distribute Activision games to Sony. On the other hand, they claim that even if the game is withdrawn from Sony consoles, it would not significantly harm competition in the console market.

The European Commission is concerned that the acquisition will harm competition in cloud gaming

Actually, the European Commission’s biggest concern was the distribution of video games through cloud services. This prevented the UK from approving the acquisition, as they believed this move could have negative consequences.

However, the European Commission believes that, despite its concern, the acquisition may harm competition in this sector. The agreements signed by Microsoft with several cloud gaming companies, such as Ukraine’s Boosteroid and Japan’s Ubitus, suggest that the company does not intend to affect this area of the market either negatively. The European Commission ensures that these long-term agreements will have the opposite effect of harming competition.

The European Commission’s executive vice president responsible for competition policy, Margrethe Vestager, has commented on the acquisition.

Vestager states that the agreements signed by Microsoft will allow for the first-time retransmission of this type of game in any game streaming service in the cloud. This will result in increased competition and more growth opportunities.

On the other hand, Vestager comments that the European Commission’s decision aims to bring Activision’s games to many more users thanks to the cloud gaming service.

Now that European regulators have given the go-ahead to the acquisition, the verdict of the US FTC investigation is expected to be known. However, recall that the FTC had previously halted the purchase, it remains to be seen whether the European Commission’s positive decision will result in the CMA removing the block on the deal.

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