Microsoft & Activision Blizzard Extends Merger Agreement Deadline

gameranx.com:

There has been a lot of chatter regarding Microsoft and its attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard. The company has sent out a massive bid to make the deal happen, and things have been anything but smooth. Regulators are going through this deal; fortunately for Microsoft, most have given the green light. Meanwhile, the FTC lost a court case against Microsoft over this deal, so it left it to the CMA. This UK regulator initially shot down the deal earlier this year, which prompted an appeal from Microsoft. Fast forward to the present day, and you might have known that yesterday was the deadline for this deal to go through.

We didn’t get any indication from Microsoft on whether the deadline for this purchase was extended or not. That prompted us to start digging into it ourselves and speculate what was going on with this merger. However, just now, Xbox head, Phil Spencer, took to Twitter and revealed that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have extended the merger agreement deadline to October 18, 2023. That should give them plenty of time to get everything settled and open up even more exciting games to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. However, we’re still waiting on the CMA.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have extended the merger agreement deadline to 10/18. We're optimistic about getting this done, and excited about bringing more games to more players everywhere.

As mentioned, there was an appeal over the CMA striking down this merger request. However, after Microsoft came out of the court case against FTC with a big win, CMA had a change of heart. Instead of going through the court system, the regulator requested Microsoft to pause the appeal process so that they may have additional discussions. Recently, the