EU Commission might object to Microsoft deal

A new report says that the EU Commission is likely to hand another setback to Microsoft’s attempted $100b acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard may face even more setbacks thanks to the European Commission, according to a new report.

The report comes courtesy of Reuters, who says that the European Commission is preparing to issue a statement of objections against the proposed deal. Microsoft will reportedly receive this charge sheet in the coming weeks, and is then expected to address the points raised within it to avoid an antitrust warning.

European Union authorities have set a deadline for April 11, 2023, to come to a final decision on the deal, and it’s not currently known where the Commission will land. If the reports are to be believed, however, the Commission may be more negative towards the deal than initially expected.

The deal would also see Microsoft come into ownership of Overwatch and World of Warcraft developer Blizzard. Picture: Activision Blizzard

Microsoft announced its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for $100 billion in January 2022, and immediately attracted the attention of several competition regulators from around the world. Some of those regulators, such as those in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia have already given the go-ahead, but two of the biggest regulators, the US Federal Trade Commission and the UK’s Competition and Market Authority have both voiced concerns about the acquisition.

Sony has been one of the primary opponents of the deal in much of the public reporting around the acquisition, with its concerns that Microsoft would have an incentive to make Activision games such as Call of Duty exclusive to Xbox and Windows.

Microsoft has attempted to quell those concerns, first striking a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to its consoles going forward, and offering the same deal to Sony and Valve, though Sony has reportedly not responded to the offer.

Much of the public discussion around the deal has been centred on Call of Duty. Picture: Activision Blizzard

Microsoft made more Call of Duty concessions as well, offering Sony the opportunity to put Call of Duty on its PlayStation Plus subscription service. The offer was made to rebut claims that Microsoft would still have an advantage even if Call of Duty was still available on PlayStation because it would be on Xbox Game Pass.

It was recently reported that Nvidia and Google have joined the lawsuit the FTC filed against Microsoft attempting to block the deal. The two companies reportedly provided statements informing the regulator of the concerns around Microsoft’s domination in the cloud gaming space.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.