Microsoft’s acquisition of the game giant Activision has been going on for a long time, as it has taken nearly two years for the deal to finally conclude. To say that there have been various obstacles in the way would be an understatement, especially considering the various objections from numerous regulators and the competition. However, the company has managed to overcome them all and closed the deal for a huge $69 billion.
It’s possibly one of the biggest acquisitions in the gaming industry and could undeniably give Microsoft a massive edge over the rest of the competing companies. That’s to be expected since the company has been undergoing countless negotiations all across the world in hopes of purchasing Activision. Acquiring the publisher behind popular game franchises like Call of Duty is bound to turn the tech company into an unstoppable force in the video game landscape.
Microsoft Will Not Be Taking Call of Duty Away From Others
Microsoft has officially confirmed that its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been finalized. The long-awaited announcement came just a couple of hours after the deal was finally approved by regulators in the UK, which isn’t the only region that proved to be a hindrance for the company. It also had to overcome plenty of hurdles in the United States as well.
To put the large scale of the Microsoft-Activision deal into perspective, the biggest consumer tech acquisition before this took place more than two decades ago. This is in reference to when Time Warner was acquired by AOL. The aforementioned regulators in the UK were the final regulatory stage that Microsoft had to cross before officially closing the deal, and the approval was given earlier today.
Microsoft’s successful acquisition of Activision is also extremely significant because literal governments all across the globe tried their best to stop the deal from being finalized, but none of them were successful in being a permanent hindrance to the tech giant’s inevitable growth. The main argument against the Microsoft-Activision acquisition was that this would not be consumer-friendly as it would harm the sense of competition in the gaming industry.
Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision: A Brief Timeline of a Huge Deal
The massive deal started early last year, in 2022, when Microsoft officially announced that it had plans to acquire Activision Blizzard and make it a part of its ever-growing Xbox team. For those still somehow unfamiliar with what Activision is, it is the publisher behind some of the biggest video games on the planet, including the long-running Call of Duty franchise and the viral Candy Crush.
It stated that it was prepared to spend a whopping $69 billion to buy Activision, which is quite huge considering how the whole gaming industry is valued at roughly $175 billion.
Also Read: Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Hints to the Return of Guitar Hero
Naturally, the announcement did not come without consequences, as it was followed by numerous government-level concerns. In fact, the deal had to go through sixteen different governments from all across the world to be officially finalized.
Microsoft then faced countless regulations and hurdles, including one from the Federal Trade Commission, which literally tried its very best to completely stop the acquisition by bringing it to an in-house court back in December, followed by another federal lawsuit in June earlier this year.
To make matters worse, the biggest obstacle yet showed up a couple of months ago, in April. The antitrust regulator from the United Kingdom, called the Competition and Markets Authority, blocked the acquisition because, according to it, the deal could be anti-consumer, especially for those who like to stream their games through the Internet. Both Microsoft and Activision tried to appeal the decision since it was a big hindrance.
A month later, European regulators permitted the deal only if Microsoft allowed Activision games to still be available on competing platforms. Two months after that, a US federal judge ruled against F.T.C. trying to delay the deal. The CMA then addressed the main concerns regarding the acquisition with Microsoft and Activision and gave its final approval for it to go through.
And today, Microsoft has finally officially acquired Activision.
Were you rooting for Microsoft successfully purchasing Activision, or were you against the acquisition? Let us know in the comments!
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