Microsoft pushes to get $69bn Activision deal approved by British regulators

Call of Duty: Ghosts: Microsoft has already agreed to license Activision blockbuster title Call of Duty to rival Sony.

Microsoft's $69bn (€64bn) Activision Blizzard acquisition got a new chance at winning approval from British regulators after the tech giant submitted a substantially different deal to the country’s antitrust watchdog.

In a rare move, the Competition and Markets Authority, or CMA, will open a new deal probe after Microsoft said it would give Ubisoft Entertainment rights to distribute Activision games, potentially easing concerns over its dominance in the cloud gaming market, it said in a statement. The CMA has set a statutory deadline of October 18 for the phase-one probe.

The CMA’s reversal follows a series of dramatic twists and turns in the deal’s global regulatory battles. The proposed takeover was thought moribund after running up against concerns from a number of competition watchdogs but gained unexpected momentum after Britain agreed to review new evidence. In the US, Microsoft beat the Federal Trade Commission’s court challenge over the deal. The European Union cleared the deal with behavioural remedies in May.

Shares in French game maker Ubisoft, which also owns the Assassin’s Creed franchise, jumped by over 8% at one stage in Paris trade. 

"We had a real concern previously that Microsoft would be able to control the way that that market was going to develop,” Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said in an interview. 

“What we see with this new deal, and we will have to test it carefully through our review, is that rather than Microsoft being able to control how those cloud streaming rights are used, that control will shift to an independent company,” she said. 

Microsoft asked the British regulator in July to reconsider its April veto on the grounds that the situation had “materially changed”, given the US court decision and a subsequent deal it reached to license Activision blockbuster title Call of Duty to rival Sony. 

“Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service — Xbox Cloud Gaming — or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services,” Microsoft said in its own statement. The deal will give Ubisoft rights to distribute Activision games. 

Bloomberg