The US Judge presiding over the ongoing legal battle between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has dismissed the latter’s request for an injunction against the former’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. With the ruling, the owners of the Windows OS will now be able to move forward with its original plans to purchase the video game studio and publisher for US$68.7 billion (~RM319.5 billion).
The FTC originally requested that an injunction against the Microsoft acquisition of Activision be issued, for fear that said purchase of the company would lead to the company making certain titles exclusive to the PC and Xbox console in the future. However, because the injunction was requested midway during the FTC’s ongoing challenge, its lawsuit against the acquisition effectively became a lot less impactful, since the deal was already done and dusted, to begin with.
The presiding judge also rejected the FTC claim that the Microsoft decision to make the highly anticipated Starfield and not-so-wanted Redfall Xbox exclusives would pave the way for it to make the Call of Duty franchise an exclusive, saying that Microsoft had long been “making deals with video game companies you’ve never heard of. “Before the merger, there is no access to Activision’s content on cloud-streaming services,” the ruling states. “After the merger, several of Microsoft’s cloud-streaming competitors will—for the first time—have access to this content. The merger will enhance, not lessen, competition in the cloud-streaming market.”
(Source: PCGamer)
