UK CMA Approves Microsoft's Acquisition Of Activision Blizzard

Hurrah! It's over! Now we can get on with gaming....

(Awaits the next year or two of call of duty speculation)

Woohoo, at last.

Get it over with today. I am glad it happens.

Well done everyone 🥳

Do I hear Jim Ryan crying somewhere ?

As expected - now it will complete by Oct 18th as stated after they pushed the date back. Streaming rights to games is unlikely to be much of a Loss as it only affects 'Cloud' and as CoD is a competitive shooter, I doubt 'many' would opt to play on Cloud unless it's the 'only' option.

OMG FINALLY I’ve been anxious all week waiting for this to happen but glad It got approved in the end

Great news and it's finally over the line. Excited for Game Pass in 2024 and adding more games to the backlog.

Now buy Sega! Let's Goo!!!!

Owning Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Sonic

Gearbox is up for sale, I OI, Crystal Dynamics, Projeck CDRED, Crytek

See what happens on Friday the 13th

Now perhaps we get some good Xbox promotions maybe console price reduction.
Let the world know about gamepass and Zenimax and Activision and all the games and studios.
Get some dam momentum behind the much loved Xbox brand.

Glad this is finally done, and glad the CMA commented on Microsoft's poor performance during the engagement. Brad Smith's interviews were embarrassing and unprofessional. Perhaps appropriate in the US, but horribly grating in the UK.

,I for one was apepltic that this might not go through.The worry that i, no ,all gamers went through to get the shareholders a pay off .

Finally this can be over and done with and we can move on. What took them so long in the first place? Why didn’t they make this decision before.

The CMA have really looked after us haven't they? I just have to buy an additional subscription if I want to stream Activision games now, great, and it's OK, it's only for the next 15 years. Thanks for looking out for the consumer CMA. 🙄👍🏻

All that aside, I'm very glad it's almost crossed the finishing line. 😊

@JetmanUK the way I interpret the cloud stuff is you can still do it through Cloud Gaming, just MS will be licensing those the same way other Cloud providers like Nvidia will be

I assume Ubisoft will give Microsoft mates rates for licensing Activision games to stream on Game Pass.

Just need to get Ubisoft plus included as part of game pass now.

@TheAshCohen09 Unless I am mistaken, I think it will be that you need to subscribe to Ubisofts Plus service to stream Activision games. Therefore a further cost to UK Xbox users, so not consumer friendly at all, at least not to my pocket. I hope I am wrong.

@Enigk Ah now if Ubi can license the games back to MS so that they can be included in Gamepass at no additional cost to the subscriber then that would be great. I am doubting this though. 😔

@The-Grezzly-Bear Also a good outcome if it could be sorted.

@JetmanUK I don't think it works that way. You'll have to subscribe to either Game Pass OR Ubi+ to stream ABK games. So, no extra cost if you already have Game Pass. The point of all this was that MS wouldn't have exclusive rights to ABK games streaming and the consumers had another option.

@Sol76 why? ,he's retired ,the guy will be living it up.

@JetmanUK I believe that Ubisoft is effectively a 'broker' to handle the 'rights' to Streaming of ABK games. That doesn't mean they have the 'exclusive' rights to Streaming so EVERYONE has to subscribe to Ubisoft+ to play ABK games via a cloud service, but that everyone who has a streaming service has to negotiate with Ubisoft, not MS over acquiring rights to stream.

As we know already, MS made deals with several streaming companies to offer 10yr deals to allow them to stream ABK titles. The point of Ubisoft handling Streaming rights was purely to have an 'independant' source for Companies (like Sony for example) to contact and MS cannot 'block' or screw them over on prices.

If Apple/Google/Amazon for example wanted CoD in a few years for example, they'd have to negotiate with MS and MS could 'refuse' or make it financially difficult for those to 'compete' - which is what the CMA are worried about, therefore these 'competitors' are able to go to Ubisoft to acquire streaming rights.

It just means that MS cannot stop Sony, Google, Amazon, Apple or any other 'Competitor' from being able to offer ABK games on their 'Cloud' services, price them out of the competition etc. The CMA thought that Game Pass Cloud would have CoD exclusivity on Streaming services so wanted some 'resolution' that can be independant and monitored to ensure that CoD could remain, at least for the immediate future, available to ALL streaming services.

I hope this means that they can work on more games, otherwise this purchase would be pointless.

Did anyone else in the uk get a gov.uk message/email earlier this morning informing the cma had approved the deal?

If MS/Activ have been preparing for a long time regarding the deal going through(safe to assume they have) and have games ready to drop on to gamepass they need to get it done quickly and get the ads/promotions out there in time for the festive season would really help to sell consoles and GP subs.

@Syndrome Thanks for the comment, I hope I have it completely wrong, this sounds much fairer.

@BAMozzy Thanks for the comment, I hope I have it completely wrong, this sounds much fairer... although does this open it up to abuse in the way that Sony currently signs exclusive deals for games. Could Sony (or Google, Amazon, Nintendo ect) then sign exclusive cloud rights to games from Ubi for their streaming service? I would hope that a protection was built in against that as this is supposed to be 'pro consumer'.

@JetmanUK I don't know the exact details of this but this was Published around the time:

Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its own cloud streaming service – Xbox Cloud Gaming – or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services.

The agreement provides Ubisoft with a unique opportunity to commercialize the distribution of games via cloud streaming. The agreement will enable Ubisoft to innovate and encourage different business models in the licensing and pricing of these games on cloud streaming services worldwide. Ubisoft will compensate Microsoft for the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard’s games through a one-off payment and through a market-based wholesale pricing mechanism, including an option that supports pricing based on usage. It will also give Ubisoft the opportunity to offer Activision Blizzard’s games to cloud gaming services running non-Windows operating systems.

Of importance, Microsoft’s obligations to provide cloud streaming rights in the European Economic Area remain in place, in full compliance with Microsoft’s commitments to the European Commission. The agreement with Ubisoft has been structured so that Microsoft will still acquire the rights needed to honor fully its legal obligations under its commitments to the European Commission, as well as its existing contractual obligations to other cloud game streaming providers, including Nvidia, Boosteroid, Ubitus, and Nware.

So to me, it seems that Ubisoft is really just an independant middleman that will 'prevent' MS having any Control over who gets Streaming rights (ie its not exclusive to MS or MS partners, even their competitors can offer ABK games) and/or control the Pricing structure so they give 'mates rates' to partners and charge Competitors a higher fee.

The point is that MS will get their 'due' money from Ubisoft who is 'selling' it to others and others will be paying Ubisoft to offer ABK games on their service and Ubisoft for example can't 'block' MS Cloud or all the others they had 'agreed' deals with - like nVidia as that would go against MS's Commitments to those...

Wow, what a surprise! Lol. Of course they did.

@CutchuSlow Go back and 'look' at all the Acquisitions since 2018. Most Studio's have released games, even if they are 'smaller', but as you know, Games take years to make, especially from scratch, and most Studio's are/were working on 'Multi-platform' games when acquired so had to 'finish' those first - hence Outer Worlds, Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, Ghostwire etc were not 'exclusive'.

ABK is basically just releasing CoD annually which requires most of their Studios to be working on that 1 IP. Sony too has some 'contract' in place that will be honoured. As for Blizzard, they don't appear to have anything 'new' in the works with Overwatch 2, Diablo IV and WoW ticking over.

So therefore, I would expect it to be quite a while before you get any Day 1 'new' games into Game Pass. I would expect MS to take a while on transitioning ABK into their Company and/or restructuring, greenlighting development of 'new' games etc. We don't really know what MS has planned or whether ABK have been making 'other' games that haven't yet been announced - so I expect it to take a good few years at least to see this acquisition delivering 'new' games.

Much like with Zenimax/Bethesda, you'll get some old games - some that were never BC on Xbox before, but we had to wait several years to get Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield and Redfall - but only because they were in 'development' when MS acquired them.

@BaltiPie Do you mean you were apoplectic?

finally, call of duty welcome home

@Sol76 Do I hear Jim Ryan crying somewhere ?

You mean the guy that believes in generations but couldn’t even keep his job during one?

Let hope they find the key for vault 687, quicker the better.

@OldGamer999 every PS fanboy asked MS to compete and act like a trillion dollar company during the Xbox one. They “wanted” competition. Now MS is awake and acting like a trillion dollar company and they just want them to go away. They never wanted PS to have competition. Well too late, MS is here to take a slice of the gaming pie and ABK is a huge slice. Throw in Bethesda and others to follow and thats a lot of games in their portfolio that are games that sell big numbers and continue to sell on console and PC for a long time. The future is bright for team green if they play their hand right.

@JetmanUK xbox will be able to put them into gamepass. It is cloud streaming that ubisoft owns the rights to. So the games might not be available to stream to your phone, browser, etc.

It’s really the leverage the Xbox gets along with the deal. If Square Enix, for example, thought Xbox was irrelevant before; they won’t now with XGS, Zenimax & ABK.

@BacklogBrad Yeah I understand that it's the cloud streaming, I was thinking that cloud streaming of Acti games was not gonna be available as part of Gamepass, to console, phone or PC. It seems that others think that this won't be the case though, hopefuly they are correct.

Think of how many tax payers dollars were wasted in both American and UK courts to try to stop something as silly as one video game company buying another.

Nice!!
In their hands its save for pc gamers also lol.
Sony would have kept it close to their chest.

@BrilliantBill
The reason I have picked the side of Microsoft over Sony is because in the past several years they have become very gamer friendly. Instead of trying to get $70 + for every game they are willing to spend their own wallet and get major acquisitions to make Gamepass a truly excellent service. $15 a month is way more digestible than $70 for every game I want to play.

The CMA has been acting ridiculously until the very end, on their high horse reprimanding Microsoft while pampering market leader Sony. The following article is old but it describes the whole process perfectly and includes link to CMA's laughable arguments if there was any doubt about their bias. With all the noise that they and the FTC have made around the world and Sony poking the bear for two years, the results might drive attention to Sony now.

My only doubt was -and is- if Microsoft will have to pay the fine because of the CMA delaying the process or if ABK and Microsoft agreed to postpone the deadline because of that without paying $4.5 billion to the current owners of ABK on top of the already inflated $68.7 billion price.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/why-sony-could-live-to-regret-getting-the-xbox-activision-blizzard-deal-blocked

Never a doubt. When the FTC blocked i said never a doubt. When the cma blocked i said never a doubt. And now, here we are. Greatest acquisition in gaming, and like i said @Kaloudz … NEVER A DOUBT!

Peace at last...

@BrilliantBill it was messy, but the CMA and FTC were mentioning sony more than consumers. The whole deal looked weak. Just glad it’s over and now to see what it brings over the next few years.

@BAMozzy go back and look at what? None of those are what I like. And I meant something from Activision that they wouldn't have done if they weren't acquired. So maybe bringing back old games or getting them to help with their current games. Or making something entirely new.