Activision's takeover by Tech giant Microsoft approved by E.U.

Huge win for Microsoft as E.U. regulators gave the green light to the tech giant to acquire gaming firm, Activision Blizzard. A $69 billion acquisition was approved by the E.U. on Monday.

Activision’s acquisition

The European Commission’s executive arm explained that the solution provided by the tech giant cleared anti-trust issues which were present in the cloud gaming area. The solutions centred around the fact that users will be allowed to stream Activision games live on any cloud gaming platform.

The U.K. top competition authority blocked the deal last month, citing concerns that it would reduce competition in the cloud gaming market. Apart from this, regulators around the world have speculated that after the deal, Microsoft may keep the company exclusively for their own platform. They also feared that the acquisition could create a lack of competition in the specific market.

The CMA further added that the deal would commercially benefit Microsoft, although it will not reduce or distort any competition from the market. Ahead of the E.U.’s final decision, Microsoft reassured that it wouldn’t make Activision games exclusive.

Even after such reassurance, there are few who’re against the acquisition. Activision is the maker of some of the biggest P.C. and console games in the world, including Call of Duty and Warcraft. Microsoft has faced opposition from regulators and Sony as well. Microsoft has also faced opposition from the giant chipmaker Nvidia.

Remedies offered by Microsoft

The regulators took a variety of parameters to understand how the takeover could affect the cloud gaming market. Within the console industry, the Xbox has fallen behind in competition with Sony’s Playstation 5 and Nintendo Switch. But the U.S. tech giant has made a giant bet on the cloud gaming industry.

The E.U. Commission concluded its decision by coming to the fact that the takeover will not reduce competition in the console market.

Cloud Gaming is such a thing that is way different from console gaming. These games can be played anywhere, including T.V., P.C., and smartphones. They do not require expensive hardware platforms to be played. The key to running a successful cloud gaming platform is to create a catalogue of games that can be accessed via subscription.

One of the major concerns of the British regulators was regarding Microsoft making these games exclusive to its own platform once the acquisition was made. It would force users to play these games only on hardware developed by the company, and doing that would hamper the competition in the market.

But the Tech giant offered remedies to these problems. Microsoft said that the consumers who bought the game from Activision will have the freedom to stream these games on any cloud gaming platform they want. Additionally to that, Microsoft will also offer royalty-free licences to cloud gaming platforms to stream Activision games.