European Commission Has Approved Microsoft's Activision Blizzard Acquisition

The European Commission approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard (photo: European Commission)

JAKARTA - Based on full compliance with the commitments offered by Microsoft, the European Commission has finally approved Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard on Monday, May 15 yesterday.

"Today's decision follows an in-depth investigation into Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision. As usual, the Commission based its decision on strong evidence, and on extensive information and feedback from competitors and customers, including from game developers and distributors as well as streaming platforms of gin cloud in the EU," wrote Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President who handled competition policies in announcements on its official website.

The European Commission also stated that the decision taken had followed an in-depth investigation into this acquisition.

#EUMergerControl Commission 🇪🇺 clears acquisition of Activision Blizzard 🎮by Microsoft, subject to conditions 👇🔗➡️https://t.co/qG3D0jNfPo pic.twitter.com/Q3P2miYisH

— EU Competition (@EU_Competition) May 15, 2023

#EUMergerControl Commission 🇪🇺 clears acquisition of Activision Blizzard 🎮by Microsoft, subject to conditions 👇🔗➡️https://t.co/qG3D0jNfPo pic.twitter.com/Q3P2miYisH

Initially, the Commission's investigation found that Microsoft could hurt competition in the distribution of video games in consoles and PCs, including multi-game subscription services and cloud game streaming services.

But now, after a more in-depth investigation, the Commission has shown that Microsoft will not be able to jeopardize rival consoles and rival multi-game subscription services.

The Commission also found that Microsoft would not have incentives to refuse to distribute Activision games to Sony, which is the main distributor of console games around the world, including in the European Economic Zone ('EEA') where there are four Sony PlayStation consoles for each Microsoft Xbox console purchased by gamers.

"Even if Microsoft decides to withdraw the Activision game from PlayStation, it won't hurt competition on the console market significantly," the European Commission said.

Therefore, if Sony without being able to offer this particular game, Sony could take advantage of its size, wide game catalog, and market position to fend off any effort that undermines its competitive position.

"Even without this transaction, Activision will not provide its games for multi-game subscription services, as this will criminalize individual game sales. Therefore, the situation of third-party multi-game subscription service providers will not change after Microsoft's acquisition of Activision," addedhya.

On the other hand, Microsoft has signed a 10-year contract with Nintendo and cloud gaming services such as NVIDIA GeForce, and Boosteroids to make its own games and Activision available there.

As such, regulators say Microsoft's commitment "fully addressing the competition issues identified by the Commission and represents a significant increase in cloud gaming compared to the current situation."