European Union to Examine Microsoft's Purchase of Activision
Microsoft is having a lot of trouble getting approval for its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The European Commission has decided to take a closer look at the matter.
Microsoft is facing further problems in its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
- As reported by Politico, the European Commission is moving to initiate a second, more detailed phase of the investigation to check the impact of this acquisition on the gaming market.
- After announcing its intention, Microsoft had until the end of October to send additional documents to the EC that could answer some of the concerns, but the US company chose not to do so, apparently believing that it had sufficiently explained its position in earlier studies.
- A decision on whether to move the investigation into the second phase must be made by the European Commission by November 8.
- Among other things, the EC has concerns about how the Activision Blizzard acquisition will affect paid services in the gaming market (these include Game Pass-like subscriptions and cloud gaming), as well as concerns that Microsoft could deprive competitors of new installments of the wildly popular Call of Duty series.
Another step in a terribly long process
Previously, the Brazilian CADE (Administrative Council for Economic Defense) and a similar agency in Saudi Arabia had agreed to the acquisition. Such proceedings are still pending in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
Recall that Microsoft has announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard earlier this year. The deal is stirring up a lot of excitement. Some time ago we reported that PlayStation chief Jim Ryan was scheduled to go to the European Parliament to express his concerns about the deal.
Microsoft assures that there is no question of depriving Sony's consoles of the Call of Duty series, as such a move would cause too much loss of players. The company was ready to guarantee the release of CoD on PlayStation devices for several years, but as you can see, this does not satisfy all interested parties. It is therefore not surprising that a few days ago the head of the Xbox division, Phil Spencer, declared that as long as there will be PlayStation consoles, the next installments of Call of Duty will not stop being released on them.
