Istafa Ali
Activision Microsoft Deal : Microsoft’s plan to buy video game company Activision Blizzard got a big boost on Tuesday when a US judge gave the $69 billion deal the green light and a British regulator said it might change its mind about being against the deal.
The US and Britain are the only two countries that have been against what would be Microsoft’s biggest deal ever and the biggest transaction in the history of the gaming business. This made Activision shares go up 10% on the day. Shares of Microsoft went up 64 cents to $332.47.
In San Francisco, US District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley didn’t agree with the Biden administration’s claim that the deal would hurt customers by giving Microsoft exclusive access to games like the best-selling “Call of Duty.”
Shortly after the US judge’s order, Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was willing to look at Microsoft’s plans to settle competition worries in the UK. This suggests that the two sides may be able to come to an agreement.
A lecturer at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Joost Van Dreunen, said that the different statements that have come out during the US hearing have all hurt the UK’s trade watchdog’s case.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that Microsoft could use the Activision games to leave behind competitors like Nintendo and market winner Sony Group.
Corley didn’t agree with her.
“The FTC hasn’t shown that it’s likely to be right that the combined company will probably pull Call of Duty from Sony PlayStation or that its ownership of Activision content will make the video game library subscription and cloud gaming markets much less competitive,” she wrote.
The FTC has until Friday to file an appeal with the court.
Douglas Farrar, a spokesman for the FTC, said that the antitrust regulator was “disappointed in this outcome given the clear threat this merger poses to open competition in cloud gaming, subscription services, and consoles.” In the next few days, we’ll tell you what our next step will be in our fight to protect customers and keep the industry alive.
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A person who knows about the situation says that the company is thinking about reviewing the court’s ruling.
When asked if it planned to appeal the decision, the FTC did not answer right away to a request for comment.
