UK regulator provisionally clears Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal

After blocking the proposed deal earlier this 12 months because of considerations it might hurt competitors within the cloud gaming area, Microsoft was pressured to submit a restructured deal to appease the CMA. Now, the UK regulator says that this new deal “considerably addresses” earlier considerations and “opens the door to being cleared.”

Underneath the brand new deal that Microsoft submitted to the CMA in August, Microsoft wouldn’t buy Activision’s cloud gaming rights, and this could as an alternative be offered to Ubisoft earlier than the acquisition is accomplished. That is apparently sufficient to get a provisional inexperienced gentle from the CMA because the “prior sale of the cloud gaming rights will set up Ubisoft as a key provider of content material to cloud gaming providers, replicating the position that Activision would have performed out there as an unbiased participant.”

The CMA added that the “sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft will forestall this vital content material – together with video games akin to Name of Responsibility, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft – from coming beneath the management of Microsoft in relation to cloud gaming. The CMA initially discovered that Microsoft already has a robust place in cloud gaming providers and will have used its management over Activision content material to stifle competitors and reinforce this place. The brand new deal as an alternative ends in the cloud streaming rights for Activision’s video games being transferred to an unbiased participant, Ubisoft, sustaining open competitors as the marketplace for cloud gaming develops over the approaching years. This cope with Ubisoft additionally requires Microsoft to port Activision video games to “working methods apart from Home windows and help sport emulators when requested, addressing the opposite important shortcoming with the earlier treatments package deal.”

Whereas the majority of the CMA’s considerations have been addressed, the UK regulator does have “restricted residual considerations that sure provisions within the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft could possibly be circumvented, terminated, or not enforced.” Nevertheless, the CMA notes that Microsoft has supplied treatments to “be certain that the phrases of the sale of Activision’s rights to Ubisoft are enforceable by the CMA.” The competitors regulator says that this extra safety ought to resolve this concern.

In a statement on Twitter, Microsoft president Brad Smith said, “We are encouraged by this positive development in the CMA’s review process. We presented solutions that we believe fully address the CMA’s remaining concerns related to cloud game streaming, and we will continue to work toward earning approval to close prior to the October 18 deadline.”

Third parties can now submit feedback on Microsoft’s proposed remedies up until October 6. The CMA is expected to make a final decision on the deal before October 18.