Microsoft Reportedly Gets China Regulator Approval on ABK Deal
According to a report issued by Dealreporter and shared today by Seeking Alpha, Microsoft has obtained the approval of the Chinese State Administration for Market Regulation on the $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard merger.
The investigation of the State Administration for Market Regulation had reached a late stage (Phase III), but the Chinese regulator ultimately granted unconditional approval. That is to say, no remedies were requested of Microsoft.
On Monday, the European Union also approved the massive merger, though the EU regulator did request behavioural remedies related to cloud gaming since making the prized Activision Blizzard games exclusive to Microsoft's cloud service (currently linked to the Game Pass Ultimate subscription tier) could have harmed competitors.
Microsoft had previously entered multiple bilateral 10-year deals with companies like GeForce NOW (which already got its first Microsoft-published game, Gears 5), Boosteroid, Ubitus, EE, and Nware, but the EU regulator obtained even more than that in the final approval. Microsoft will now offer a free 10-year license for all its games (including Activision Blizzard's once the deal is fully cleared) to cloud gaming platforms, and users will also have the chance to stream any of the games they have a license for via any streaming platform of their choice.
However, as we've extensively covered in the past few weeks, the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority decided to block the deal. Microsoft heavily contested this ruling, with president Brad Smith calling for UK PM Rishi Sunak to 'look hard' at the CMA, while CEO Satya Nadella didn't even rule out a shocking move like carving out Activision Blizzard titles in the UK version of Game Pass as a
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