There is still about a month left for the conclusion of the deal between the two companies to reach its second deadline (the first was set for July 18). Even then, Microsoft will not have managed to acquire Activision, the Redmond company will find itself forced to pay a large sum of money (the penalty was set at 3.5 billion dollars) into the coffers of the publisher led by Bobby Kotick as compensation.
To decide whether or not the deal will go through, however, they are the anti-trust bodies, each for their own country. There are two in particular who oppose the deal: Federal Trade Commission in the United States and Competition and Market Authority in Great Britain. While the court hearings continue with the former, the CMA opinion seems to be closer and, this time, more inclined to accept the requests.
As reported by the official government sites of the United Kingdom, CMA seems to be satisfied with the intention to resolve the critical issues – in particular those relating to the cloud market – highlighted in the first instance. Microsoft, in short, may have hit the right chords this time. Basic: the solution offered by Microsoft to reassure CMA provides for the renunciation of the management of IPs on the cloud market, rights which would instead be transferred to Ubisoft which will also be responsible for possibly evaluating the landing of these games on various services.
The French Canadian publisher and developer will be responsible for managing – for the cloud market – the catalog of titles produced by Activision. In all likelihood, the Guillemot family company will first have to honor the various agreements already signed by Microsoft with Boosteroid, Ubitus, Nintendo and Nvidia.
Although satisfied – as emerges from the press release – CMA still has some residual doubts. Microsoft has tried to respond to these by proposing further solutions that would allow the British antitrust authority to intervene when necessary. At the moment, the organization has decided to take two more weeks to conduct further internal consultations. A response is therefore expected on October 6th.
