Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard, the largest acquisition in entertainment history valued at $68.7 billion, is getting closer to being a reality. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Court of San Francisco (California) has supported Microsoft in its legal battle against the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and has paved the way for the Xbox company to take over the publisher of games so popular games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft or Candy Crush.
After a preliminary hearing held last week and in which the main managers of the companies involved – including the CEO of PlayStation – intervened, the judge has endorsed Microsoft’s purchase intention and has rejected the precautionary measures requested by the protection body. American competition to block the operation.
The judge’s ruling does not mean that Microsoft has won the trial that confronts it with the FTC and that should be held on August 2, but it does make things easier for the Redmond giant to close the Activision Blizzard purchase agreement before the deadline of July 18, at which time the conditions of the purchase should be renegotiated between the parties.
“Microsoft has committed in writing, in public and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years at parity with Xbox,” Judge Corley’s ruling states. “[Microsoft] has reached an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And they have signed several agreements to bring Activision content to various cloud gaming services for the first time,” she adds.
“For the reasons explained, the Court finds that the FTC has failed to demonstrate the likelihood of prevailing in its claim that this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially reduce competition. To the contrary, the evidence in the record points to increased consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content.”
Despite the fact that the judge has denied the FTC’s request for injunctive relief, the antitrust body has the opportunity to appeal the judge’s decision before July 14 at 11:59 p.m.
After this decision, the biggest obstacle that exists right now for the acquisition to become effective is the opposition from the UK competition regulator (the Competition and Markets Authority or CMA in English). In this regard, the president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, has just published a message on social networks indicating that Microsoft, Activision and the CMA have made a joint decision to abandon litigation to try to negotiate a way out of the purchase blockade.
The video game company that has shown the strongest opposition to this operation is the Japanese Sony, manufacturer of the PlayStation console. Since the purchase was announced in January of last year, he has exercised frontal opposition, and at the center of his concerns is that Call of Duty, one of the best-selling franchises of the last two decades, ends up being exclusive to Xbox, something that Microsoft has claimed that it won’t happen for at least a 10-year period.
European competition agencies approved Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard last May. The European Commission accepted the list of commitments of the American giant to adapt to its claims and affirmed that the operation no longer poses a threat to competition in the video game market.
The announcement of Microsoft’s intention to purchase Activision Blizzard was announced at the beginning of 2022 and, since then, it has been the topic that has focused today in the video game industry. More than a year and a half later, it is still unknown how it will end, but Judge Corley’s decision has paved the way for it to end up happening.