June 5 (Portaltic/EP) –
Microsoft is thinking of withdrawing Activision Blizzard from the United Kingdom to conclude the purchase agreement of the video game developer, after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) of this country positioned itself against said acquisition.
The CMA had already tipped the balance in favor of Sony in its provisional conclusions, released in February, when it suggested that closing this purchase could lead to competition concerns with console and cloud gaming services.
At the end of April, this body issued a statement in which it rejected the purchase proposed by Microsoft, assuring that it did so “for fear that the operation would alter the future of the market” and indicated that it considered that Microsoft had a dominant position within the streaming services.
Microsoft Chairman Brad Smith will meet with UK Chancellor of Finance Jeremy Hunt this week to revisit the issue and discuss the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, as the tech company remains committed “to find creative and constructive ways to address the remaining regulatory concerns,” according to a spokesperson for the company.
In addition to this meeting, Smith will meet with Microsoft’s legal representatives to define the company’s strategy to deal with the CMA’s decision and one of the options that they could consider would be to withdraw Activision Blizzard from the United Kingdom, according to picked up Bloomberg.
Microsoft could, on the other hand, present the arguments why the European Union (EU) Yes, you have given the go-ahead to the purchase of the video game developer, with the aim of getting the CMA to change its mind regarding the purchase.
It should be remembered that the European Comission did approve this acquisition in mid-May, ensuring that Microsoft “would have no incentive to refuse to distribute Activision’s games to Sony” and that “even if Microsoft decided to remove Activision games from PlayStationthis would not significantly harm competition in the console market.”
