UK decision on $68.7bn Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal due this week
The UK will finally issue its ruling on Microsoft's $68.7bn attempt to buy Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard this week, following months of deliberation.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is one of three key regulators around the world still scrutinising Microsoft's deal, alongside the US Federal Trade Commission and the EU's European Commission.
A final ruling by the CMA must arrive before the end of its deadline day — this Wednesday, 26th April — and Microsoft has recently had reason to hope its efforts to win over the UK authority will ultimately prove successful.
Last month, the CMA issued its provisional conclusion on the deal, and said it now considered Microsoft's bid to take over Activision Blizzard would «not result in a substantial lessening of competition in relation to console gaming in the UK».
It marked a sea change for the CMA's attitude on whether the deal should pass, after an earlier provisional report raised significant concerns over the deal going ahead, and sternly warned such a deal «could harm UK gamers» and potentially result in «higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation».
In particular, the CMA had been concerned over the possibility Microsoft could limit access to Call of Duty to PlayStation once the deal passed. Microsoft has always argued that doing so would not make business sense — that it would lose access to a lucrative market of PlayStation Call of Duty players, and that the game would suffer as a result. It's an argument that Microsoft has seemingly now convinced the CMA of.
«New data (which provides better insight into the actual purchasing behaviour of Call of Duty gamers) indicates that this strategy would be significantly loss-making under any
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