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Microsoft may take over Activision Blizzard

12.7.2023

Translation: machine translated

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wanted to block the purchase of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. The court has ruled against this. An agreement with the British regulators is also in sight.

The deadline is 18 July. The takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft must be finalised by then. If not, the Windows group is obliged to pay a three billion US dollar "break-up fee" to the game publisher. This does not appear to be necessary now. On Wednesday a Californian court ruled against a temporary halt to the deal. This means that the US trade authority has failed for the time being.

The FTC filed a lawsuit against the takeover back in December. The purchase would give Microsoft an unfair market advantage. The reason cited was "Call of Duty". The game, which generated 16 billion US dollars in sales on the Playstation alone in 2021, is unique in the industry. Because the authority feared that Microsoft would be able to finalise the deal before they could go to court, they requested a temporary injunction. This has now been rejected.

«Call of Duty» to continue to appear on Playstation
Source: Activision

No evidence for exclusive "Call of Duty"

The judge was persuaded by the numerous concessions made by Microsoft in the course of the hearings. These include promises that "Call of Duty" will remain on the Playstation platform for at least another ten years. The game will also be released on the Switch. Almost a million documents were submitted by the FTC, but none of them proved that Microsoft wanted to make "Call of Duty" exclusive,

the judge said.

Great Britain gives in

Guarantees were also made for Activision content in the cloud area. The latter was the reason for the British regulators to block the takeover. A solution now also appears to be in sight there. On Wednesday, it was announced that the legal dispute would be paused. Instead, negotiations will resume on how the takeover could work in the UK. Experts assume that "Call of Duty" could be excluded from the Game Pass in the UK. <p

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Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

As a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.

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