Insider Gaming Network
flag
flag
flag
Mike Straw·
NewsXbox OneXbox Series X
··1 min read

Microsoft’s Purchase Of Activision Blizzard To Be Approved By EU

Microsoft's Purchase Of Activision Blizzard To Be Approved By EU
Photo by Matthew Manuel on Unsplash

In what will be a major win for Microsoft, EU regulators are expected to approve the company’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.

According to Reuters, an announcement on the approval is likely to happen on May 15.

“The EU antitrust enforcer is expected to clear the acquisition after Microsoft agreed to licensing deals with cloud streaming rivals including Nvidia, Ukraine’s Boosteroid and Japan’s Ubitus, other people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters in March,” the report reads.

The EU Commission, which had set a date of May 22 for a decision, declined to provide comment to Reuters on the report.

The news of EU approval comes on the heels of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) voting to block the deal. Their reasoning is because of Microsoft’s apparent dominance of the cloud-gaming space. It’s a decision that Microsoft is appealing to have overturned.

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is still investigating the acquisition in its attempt to block Microsoft from closing its purchase of the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft publisher. The FTC announced back in December that it was going to sue in order to block the deal.

What do you think of Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard being approved by EU regulators? Do you think this clears the way for a closure of the deal?

For more Insider Gaming, see our exclusive on when EA Sports FC will be revealed by the company.

Tags
Mike Straw
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of gaming, Mike was a beat reporter for various outlets covering the NHL for years before moving to game journalism full time. When he's not writing, you can find Mike playing various turn-based strategy games and roguelikes.

23 Comments

  1. Terrible if true, XBOX has shown they only know how to purchase studios, and not get them to continue to produce great products.
    Everyone who is for this deal is lying to themselves, I was an Xbox fan until their products kept dying on me & the quality of their games became lackluster at best.

      1. Sony buys smaller companies they have worked with in the past and have a direct relationship with, or studios that show promise with no games they’ve announced. I was all for the deal… what’s better than free Call of Duty when im already paying for Game Pass? This is…until I woke up and realized Microsoft has NEVER built a studio from the ground up, let alone any notable games that have any relevance in today’s market. Equally concerning…is Microsoft’s management over all the companies they have purchased, and the fact that very few of them are making anything close to what Sony is doing. Face it…Xbox will always be second class especially when their management believes they will always be second class, regardless of the quality of the content they provide.

      2. But in actual fact the studios sony bought end up doing better games than from Microsoft from a Asia perspective. They are not really good games to look for from Microsoft at all if any.

  2. Good. As a PC gamer Sony’s the bad guy PERIOD. Xbox is an amazing brand as PC gamer.

    3. That’s ridiculous, PC is Microsoft, your statement makes no sense. You should say as a Windows OS gamer, and that should show how ridiculous your statement is. But Microsoft is very bad for PC gaming, it’s why Linux and Mac gaming hasn’t taken off, because they have a monopoly on PC with Windows.

  3. Anybody that thinks Activision is better in the hands of douchebag Bobby is lying to themselves

  4. Hopefully they block it microsoft destroys studios and don’t even understand the concept behind it

  5. We all knew this would happen. It. Was ridiculous to block MS when Sony controls most of the console market. Even multiple cloud players have said the block is bad for the community.

    Funny how the CMA overlooked the proof that Sony was paying devs not to develop for Xbox…

  6. The problem with Microsoft, or rather, Phil Spencer is that, he’s a good guy, but he’s also incompetent at times.

    For example, look at Redfall. It failed because of lack of outside help, which The XBOX Team could have given and should have given on day one, not wait until the studio asks for help.

    Let’s imagine you work in a game studio, and you get bought out. Will you ask the new company for help? Look at the current trend of kicking people out for no reason, or them waiting to give a reason. They fear that if they ask, they get kicked out for being bad at their job.

    This doesn’t mean that Phil Spencer would do that, but it still paints a picture of fear with the job stability right now. This isn’t Microsoft’s fault but they did join into it by randomly kicking poeple out, mass layoffs to save on money.

    There’s reasons why recent games fail and that’s because current game companies are thinking with cash first, and user enjoyment is probably their 75th worry, all the way back.

  7. This is terrible if true Microsoft needs to take that 60$ billion and invest in creating new studio’s. Stop trying to buy the up all the third party companies. This is crazy they cant compete so they are trying to force a monopoly on the gaming industry. Sad day for gaming!

  8. Hello love your website. I couldn’t help but comment on the article.

  9. Starting to sound like a monopoly to me. Especially when they’re saying one thing pre-purchase and completely disregarding it afterwards.

  10. They all did the same reports about the UK CMA and look what happened, it wasn’t approved. So to me no one will know until the announcement. They also might approve it with such stringent conditions that Microsoft and Activision will have to treat it as a no anyway.

  11. The problem i see with it going thru is that now it is open to everyone. But now they can limit to just People that have game pass. Like minecraft you can buy it on all systems but you have to have Microsoft account to play with you friends on multi systems Nintendo switch and ps5. Having to double pay avain just to play with friends as with large liberay on game pass and steam. What then stopping them putting them on gamepass and no where Else and then charging them for it after buying for the game for the consoles

  12. Please no, Microsoft track record of buying and then developers’ gaming quality output goes down hill. This company already owns Minecraft for Christ’s sake. Microsoft bought Finland’s national treasure Nokia, only for Nokia to die.

  13. I hope they do agree to the deal. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with the sale and the only ones throwing a fit are salty Sony fanboys.

  14. I have a ps5 but also pc I think this is a bad deal for games so many studios fall apart after being acquired by a big house and their games turn to mush… look at BioWare

  15. Great deals sony has to keep to platform o line Microsoft has been dominate in PC and online .Playstation is a good driver and 2d fighter games .Xbox has the ftp and rpg better PC all around best graphics . So Microsoft smart deal…..

Comments are closed.