The European Commission has allowed Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard for $ 68.7 billion. This is the first major regulator to approve the deal.
The European Commission concluded that it is unprofitable for Microsoft to make Call Of Duty and other publisher games its exclusives. But even if it stops releasing them on PlayStation, it will not significantly harm competition in the console market.
One of the main arguments in favor of the deal was the 10-year agreements that Microsoft signed with Nintendo, NVIDIA and a number of cloud services. In order to further reduce the possible negative impact on the cloud gaming market, the European Commission demanded that Microsoft “automatically” release popular Activision Blizzard games on competing cloud platforms. The corporation agreed to this condition and announced that it would comply with it worldwide.
The British regulator, which previously blocked the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, called the decision of the EU authorities erroneous.