Microsoft vs. Sony: FTC Loses $69 Billion Activision Litigation in Court of Appeals

Microsoft moves closer to buying video game giant Activision Blizzard. A US appeals court on Saturday evening also rejected the FTC’s request to block the acquisition with an injunction. A US judge had previously dismissed an FTC lawsuit. The competition authority had not been able to credibly argue that the acquisition “could significantly impede competition”.

The final hurdle to the $69 billion deal is opposition from Britain’s competition authorities. To appease British regulator CMA, Microsoft is willing to give up part of its cloud gaming business in the country, financial service Bloomberg reported Friday. Video games can be used over the network rather than on consoles.

Microsoft wants to secure popular video games such as “Call of Duty”, “Overwatch” and “Candy Crush” with the purchase of Activision Blizzard. A fear of competition watchdogs was that the group would only offer the games on the Xbox console and its own cloud service. Microsoft denies this.

In the course of the investigation, the group promised to make the games available for ten years for other consoles such as Sony’s Playstation or Nintendo’s Switch, as well as cloud platforms from other providers such as NVIDIA. That wasn’t enough for the FTC. The competition watchdogs in the EU and about 40 other countries have already given the green light for the acquisition.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard originally set themselves a deadline of July 18, 2023 to complete the acquisition in early 2022. It remains unclear whether there could be an agreement with the CMA by then.

(oli/sda/dpa)