Nearly two years after Microsoft announced its bid to purchase Activision Blizzard and bring it under its fold, the Xbox owner finally received the green light from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and was able to finalise its US$69 billion (~RM326 billion) takeover of the studio that owns Diablo and the Call of Duty IPs.
The CMA remained the last long-standing hurdle to Microsoft, long after its deal to acquire the video game studio and developer received the blessings from the EU and US regulators. The decision by the UK body comes as something as a surprise to the gaming world too; it had long been the most vocal opponent against the buyout, saying that the deal would give the software company an unfair advantage over other industry players, such as Sony PlayStation.
In order to pacify the CMA, Microsoft announced that it would transfer its cloud gaming rights of Activision Blizzard games over to Ubisoft. “Ubisoft will compensate Microsoft for the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard’s games through a one-off payment and through a market-based wholesale pricing mechanism, including an option that supports pricing based on usage. It will also give Ubisoft the opportunity to offer Activision Blizzard’s games to cloud gaming services running non-Windows operating systems,” Brad Smith, President at Microsoft said.
(Source: CNBC)
