CMA Extends Deadline To Decide On Microsoft Activision Blizzard Purchase

There is plenty of attention placed on Microsoft right now. The company made headlines in the video game industry when it made a massive $69 billion bid to acquire Activision Blizzard. Of course, since the bid came out, it’s been anything but a smooth ride for Microsoft. They are still working through regulators to ensure they can acquire the company, and today we’re finding out that the CMA has extended their deadline decision. Instead of knowing if this deal will go through for the UK this month, we’ll instead know by the end of August.

Thanks to a report from the VGC, we’re learning that the CMA has extended their deadline decision by six weeks. That would now put the deadline decision on August 29, 2023. That’s the deadline, as we could see a decision come out from the CMA before the actual deadline. If that’s the case, then we could see some kind of a decision come by midway into next month, but that’s only speculative right now. Fortunately, this is not the first time the CMA has had eyes on this acquisition merger. We already heard earlier this year that the CMA struck down the deal with the company viewing Microsoft as having too much control of cloud gaming. 

Of course, since that decision came out, Microsoft has started an appeal to once again bring this deal back in front of the CMA. Then we had Microsoft battling it out with the FTC, where Microsoft recently won the court battle. That prompted the CMA to request Microsoft hold off their appeal and that the two could once again have discussions. We don’t know if this means the CMA is making some new requests that Microsoft would abide by. It’s been reported that some small changes might be made for Microsoft, but nothing official has come out just yet, and it might be that way for a few weeks.

Meanwhile, the battle with the FTC is not over yet. While Microsoft had won its initial court case, we know that the FTC has appealed. We’ll have to monitor and see what comes of that, but Microsoft is still pressing on, and we may soon see Activision Blizzard fall under the Xbox umbrella. We’re sure those subscribed to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service are more than in favor of this happening to further buff up the amount of video game content available to play on Xbox consoles and the PC platform.