Microsoft and Activision will likely delay deal to address CMA concerns

Competition and Markets Authority UK

Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard are likely to delay their deal in order to address concerns held by the United Kingdom’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA).

The CMA remains the last major roadblock in completing the merger between the two video game companies without incident. Last week a US court ruled against the Federal Trade Commission to allow the deal to go through in the United States.

The CMA is one of the deal’s biggest opponents after initially seeming to approve the deal before a sudden about-face over cloud gaming.

While early conversation surrounding the deal was all about Call of Duty, recent arguments remain fixated on cloud gaming after Microsoft offered 10 year deals for parity across consoles.

Now both the CMA and Microsoft are seeking to settle their differences out of court, postponing a tribunal in the UK.

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has granted Microsoft and the CMA two months to solve their issues. This may worry some as this runs afoul of the July 18 deadline to complete the deal.

However like most deals of a similar nature, both Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard allegedly can mutually agree to extend the deadline with little to no adverse consequences.

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A basement-dwelling ogre, Brandon's a fan of indie games and slice of life anime. Has too many games and not enough time.


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