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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission gave the green light on Monday to the takeover of video game studio Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, saying it had received sufficient guarantees from the American company to ensure that there is no breach of competition law.
According to the European regulator, Microsoft “would not be able to harm competing consoles and competing multi-game subscription services”, even after integrating Activision into its business.
Last month, the British competition authority opposed the takeover, explaining that it had not received a commitment from Microsoft, producer of Xbox consoles, that the “Call Of Duty” games, developed by Activision , continue to be available on other “cloud gaming” platforms, in particular those of Sony, producer of Playstation consoles.
“Microsoft would have no interest in refusing to distribute Activision games to Sony, which is the world’s leading distributor of console games,” said the European regulator, however.
The acquisition has been validated in Japan, while the American authorities are exploring solutions to prevent this operation of 69 billion dollars.
(Report by Foo Yun Chee, written by Victor Goury-Laffont, edited by Tangi Salaün)
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