Its been a long, treacherous road for Microsoft as it’s faced a number of obstacles in its pursuit to swallow up Activision. But it appears that the road from here on out may be a bit smoother.
When it finally goes down, the acquisition will be the biggest financial deal in gaming history.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) indicated last week that Microsoft’s new bid likely clears the deal saying, it “substantially addresses previous concerns” that caused the deal to get blocked in the past.
Past concerns revolved around Microsoft’s future relationship with cloud gaming networks given it’s takeover of some of the world’s most popular games, including, Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
Activision’s cloud gaming rights outside Europe are set to be acquired by the French publisher, Ubisoft, for the forthcoming 15 years. This move is part of Microsoft’s recent proposal, which, according to the CMA, aims to sustain “fair competition as the cloud gaming market evolves in future years.”
Even though the CMA expressed minor reservations about certain facets of the rights transfer to Ubisoft – specifically questioning if parts of the deal could be “bypassed, ended, or unenforced” – preliminary evaluations indicate that Microsoft’s proposed solutions should tackle these concerns.
Colin Raftery, a senior director of mergers at the CMA, said the proposal is a new and “substantially different deal, which keeps the cloud distribution of these important games in the hands of a strong independent supplier, Ubisoft, rather than under the control of Microsoft.”
The CMA was the last obstacle thwarting Microsoft’s deal going down. Now that it appears out of the way via the new proposal, the expectation is that the deal does indeed, pass and Microsoft acquires Activision at $69 billion.