Microsoft’s bid to acquire video gaming giant Activision Blizzard for about $68.7 billion has been approved by regulators of the European Union. The development comes just weeks after the deal was blocked by the UK regulators.
The approval for the deal to proceed is contingent on Microsoft making concessions on access to cloud gaming. It requires the company to automatically grant a license for Activision Blizzard games to any competing cloud-based gaming service.
The European Union regulators found that Microsoft “would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision’s games to Sony” and that “even if Microsoft did decide to withdraw Activision’s games from the PlayStation, this would not significantly harm competition in the consoles market.”
However, it found that the deal could harm competition around the distribution of PC and console games through cloud gaming services. As a remedy, Microsoft will need to offer free licenses to consumers in EU countries that would allow them to stream via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice.” This applies to all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games that they have a license for.
Although Microsoft received approval from the EU, the deal remains doubtful because of UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) which was blocked a few weeks back. The Redmond-based tech giant has said that it plans to aggressively appeal the UK decision. Regulators in South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Serbia, and Japan have approved the deal, while China, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia are all still reviewing the deal.
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