Microsoft It seemed that he was going to have a difficult time with the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, but the Redmond giant has been able to read the situation better than the regulators themselves to turn the tables. One of the main stumbling blocks is the CMA, the United Kingdom’s antitrust authority, which is taking steps to definitively approve the operation.
The latest information that we have learned reinforces the position that the CMA will finally authorize the operation. The information comes from the Financial Times, the prestigious economic newspaper, which has emphasized the following in an article available to paying users:
“It’s also a big week for Big Tech with quarterly results from Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft. The latter will also have an eye on the United Kingdom, where on Wednesday the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) must finally decide whether to block the $69 billion acquisition of game developer Activision-Blizzard, although this is likely to result, as expected, in the CMA supporting the operation”.
In short, it may be that the approval of the CMA to the purchase of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft is imminent. Although the Redmond giant has obtained the approval of many countries, including one as important as Japan, at the moment of truth it is the American FTC, the British CMA and the European Union regulators who have the upper hand. for the handle In fact, it should not be forgotten that the CMA was the spearhead that prevented NVIDIA’s acquisition of ARM.
With a European Union that seems inclined to approve the purchase process, the ball is now, apparently, in the court of the FTC, which went so far as to file a lawsuit against the operation. However, the investigation by the US authority has come to put Sony on the ropes, especially due to its alleged exclusivity agreements and the possibility that it is maneuvering dirty to torpedo Xbox.
From here we enter the usual: As long as there is no official announcement, it is better to take the information with a grain of salt. However, the Financial Times is a newspaper that takes itself very seriously within its sphere, so it can be said that the approval of the CMA, barring surprise or last minute delay, is very close (it does not necessarily have to arrive tomorrow). If that expectation is met, Microsoft could complete the operation within the established deadlines.
Microsoft has been very good at maneuvering to get antitrust regulators to favor its Activision-Blizzard purchase, highlighting here the many deals it has reached with NVIDIA and Nintendo, among others. In fact, this operation has been the great opportunity that the Great N of video games has had to see Call of Duty appear regularly on its console, although considering the dates we are on, the agreement may begin to materialize after the launch of the Switch 2 (or whatever the future console is called, which is not expected to be revolutionary on a conceptual level).
