Microsoft to Get Approval of Activision Blizzard Deal from EU Next Week [RUMOR]

wccftech.com:

Reuters sources are claiming today that Microsoft will receive approval for its massive $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard from the European Union regulator next week, on Monday, May 15th.

Reuters shared a similar rumor in early March. However, in the meantime, the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority has blocked the deal.

For a long time, regulators expressed concerns about what would happen to the console market if Call of Duty was made exclusive to Microsoft's Xbox platforms. It was also the argument often used by the most vocal opponent to the deal, Sony. The CMA ultimately had to agree with Microsoft that it wouldn't be at all financially convenient to pursue such a strategy, given that most of the revenue earned by Call of Duty on consoles comes from PlayStation platforms.

However, they blocked the deal on the grounds that acquiring Activision Blizzard's prized IPs (Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft, Crash, and many others) would allow Microsoft to foreclose competitors in the nascent cloud gaming market. The CMA created a market that doesn't quite exist in those terms, according to many analysts, and also used the entirety of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriber base to come up with the 60-70% leadership figure that Microsoft allegedly has in that specific market, even if many Game Pass Ultimate users never even tried the XCloud streaming service (it's not even available in some countries).

Approval from the European Union would certainly strengthen Microsoft's fighting stance. As you'll recall, president Brad Smith had some harsh words for the CMA, suggesting to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that he should take a hard look at the independent organization. He also

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