European Commission approves Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal
The European Commission has given final approval to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard after the Xbox maker made 10-year commitments to address regulator concerns in the growing cloud streaming market.
While the commission's preliminary investigation identified concerns around the deal having negative impacts in the console, PC, and multi-game subscription markets, after an in-depth look into the issues, it ultimately determined some of those were non-issues.
It agreed that Microsoft would have no incentive to withhold games from PlayStation consoles in Europe, as the European Economic Area (EEA) has four PlayStation systems for every Xbox system, and the Call of Duty franchise is not as big in Europe as in other markets.
As for competing subscription services, the commission decided that they would not have put its games into them for fear of cannibalizing sales, "Therefore, the situation for third-party providers of multi-game subscription services would not change after the acquisition of Activision by Microsoft."
However, the commission did determine that the deal would harm competition in cloud gaming services, and could further strengthen Microsoft's hold on PC operating systems with Windows.
To address those concerns, Microsoft offered to give consumers in the EEA a free license to stream all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games for which they have a license, and to stream them through the cloud streaming service of their choice.
Along with that, Microsoft also offered a free license to cloud streaming services to allow players in the EEA to stream any of Activision Blizzard's PC and console games.
Both commitments have a 10-year term on them, and the commission said
Read more on gamesindustry.biz
