After months of deliberation, the final hurdle in front of Xbox's planned $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard is all but cleared. The last holdout, United Kingdom's regulatory board, the Competition and Markets Authority (or CMA), has given preliminary approval for the deal to move forward.
The CMA announced its ruling today, where it stated the "sale of Activision’s cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft substantially addresses previous concerns and opens the door to the deal being cleared." The board has opened discussions on Microsoft's proposal until October 6, after which a final decision is expected by the October 18 deadline.
Xbox x Activision Blizzard.
Earlier this year, the CMA blocked the sale of Activision Blizzard to Microsoft, citing concerns over cloud gaming; specifically, there were fears that Microsoft would limit the streaming capabilities of Activision's games--including Call Of Duty--to its own streaming service. Since then, Microsoft has agreed to sell streaming rights for the Activision portfolio to Ubisoft, which opened the door to today's decision.
