There was plenty of chatter recently about Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard. It looks like Microsoft is celebrating a victory today as the EU regulators have officially approved the deal. However, that hasn’t stopped the CMA from offering its own comment on the approval. Today we’re finding out that a chief executive is calling out the EU regulators to approve this deal.
Thanks to a report from Yahoo, we’re learning that the CMA is chiming in on the recent EU regulator approval. According to the CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell, the regulators are still standing with their current decision. But, again, this all boils down to cloud gaming. According to Sarah Cardell, the decision to allow Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next ten years. The CMA believes that this would replace a free, open, and competitive market.
Microsoft’s proposals, accepted by the European Commission today, would allow Microsoft to set the terms and conditions for this market for the next 10 years. They would replace a free, open and competitive market with one subject to ongoing regulation of the games Microsoft sells, the platforms to which it sells them, and the conditions of sale. This is one of the reasons the CMA’s independent panel group rejected Microsoft’s proposals and prevented this deal.
Sarah Cardell – Yahoo
Cloud gaming has been a subject the EU regulators took notice of but felt that this still didn’t warrant the regulators blocking the deal. So instead, they listed out a couple of remedies on the matter, which we’ll list below.
- A free license to consumers in the EEA that would allow them to stream, via any cloud game streaming services of their choice, all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games for which they have a license.
- A corresponding free license to cloud game streaming service providers to allow EEA-based gamers to stream any Activision Blizzard’s PC and console games.
It looks like the EU is not a regulator that Microsoft will have to appeal going forward. But still, with the CMA standing by their decision, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft can finally persuade them to give the deal their seal of approval. Although cloud gaming might not be much of a massive source for players to enjoy games, it does look like regulators are trying to predict how much cloud gaming will be influential to players years from now. So we’re certainly interested in seeing what Microsoft has to say regarding the future of their cloud gaming efforts after going through the appeals.
