Games
Deadline for acquisition of Activision Blizzard extended
In front of the Activision Building in Santa Monica, California. Microsoft is getting closer to buying video game giant Activision Blizzard. photo
© Richard Vogel/AP
Tough struggle over Microsoft’s plans. The British competition authority is reluctant to give its “yes” to the takeover of Activision Blizzard. But now there is still some air.
The deadline for the takeover of the video games giant Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard has been extended until mid-October in the face of opposition from British competition watchdogs. The companies also negotiated a higher severance payment for Activision Blizzard in the event that the mega deal should still fail.
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are still trying to convince the British competition authority CMA with concessions. She vetoed the takeover in April because she feared distortions in competition. The CMA delayed the release of its final report until the end of August – giving companies some leeway. According to a media report, Microsoft was ready to sell parts of its cloud gaming business to other providers.
Microsoft wants to secure popular video games like “Call of Duty”, “Overwatch” and “Candy Crush” with the purchase of Activision Blizzard. One fear from competition watchdogs was that the group would then only offer the games on its Xbox console and its own cloud service. In the course of the investigations, the group promised to make the games available for other consoles such as Sony’s Playstation or Nintendo’s Switch as well as cloud platforms from other providers for ten years.
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard announced the deal, which was worth around $ 69 billion at the time, in early 2022. They set themselves a deadline of July 18 this year to complete the acquisition. In the event of a failure, Activision Blizzard was given the right to a $3 billion penalty.
However, both companies intend to continue with the business. At the same time, Activision Blizzard is now entitled to a higher severance payment of $3.5 billion if the acquisition is canceled after August 29. A failure after September 15 increases the amount to $4.5 billion.
Bloomberg on UK Concessions Notice from Activision Blizzard