Acquisition of Activision Blizzard: EU decision is postponed

03/19/2023 at 5:00 p.m. by Valentin Sattler – The EU has postponed its decision on the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. Instead of April 25, it should now only be decided on May 22 whether and under what conditions the purchase can take place. At the same time, the approvals of other authorities are still missing.

The surprise was great when Microsoft announced in January 2022 that the company wanted to take over the video game group Activision Blizzard for almost 69 billion US dollars. This takeover has been dragging on ever since, because numerous permits first have to be obtained for the purchase. In particular, the influence on the overall market is examined, since Activision Blizzard owns some important brands – keyword Call of Duty.

EU decision in May

According to Eurogamer, the European Commission actually wanted to decide by April 25 whether the takeover would at least be allowed from the European side. Due to new promises from Microsoft, however, this date can apparently not be kept: Reuters reports that the decision should not be made until May 22nd.

Until then, further talks with customers and competitors of Activision Blizzard are apparently to be held. Microsoft has previously announced that it will agree to some conditions such as license agreements. However, a separate sale of the Call of Duty series is excluded. This would probably be particularly desirable for Sony. Because the company actually works closely with the series, and the takeover raises concerns that Microsoft could in future give the Xbox consoles an advantage over the Playstation competition.

To counteract this concern, Microsoft apparently signed some contracts that require Call of Duty to continue to be offered on other companies’ platforms. Nvidia and Nintendo, for example, are mentioned, but Sony is not yet mentioned.

Last on the subject: Explosive: Sony boss is said to only want to prevent Microsoft’s Activision takeover

According to Reuters, such deals give a good chance that the EU will approve the takeover in May. Of course, that’s not guaranteed yet. In addition, further approvals from other authorities, for example from the United Kingdom, are still pending. It therefore remains exciting whether, when and under what conditions Microsoft will be able to take over Activision Blizzard in the end.

Quelle: Reuters via Eurogamer