Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard takeover approved by UK, clearing way for deal to close
Britain’s top competition watchdog on Friday gave the green light to Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion takeover of gaming firm Activision Blizzard, removing the last major hurdle for the deal to close.
The Competition and Markets Authority said it had cleared the deal for Microsoft to buy Activision but without cloud gaming rights.
“The new deal will stop Microsoft from locking up competition in cloud gaming as this market takes off, preserving competitive prices and services for UK cloud gaming customers,” the regulator said in a statement Friday.
The CMA was the final regulator holding up the deal. Microsoft should now be able to close the acquisition.
The decision marks a major U-turn from the CMA, the staunchest critic of the takeover, which effectively blocked the deal earlier this year over concerns the acquisition would hamper competition in the nascent cloud gaming market.
Microsoft first proposed to acquire Activision in January 2022, but has since faced regulatory challenges in the U.S., Europe and the U.K.
In July, the CMA said it would consider a restructured acquisition from Microsoft to allay its concerns. Microsoft offered a spate of concessions, which centered around divesting the cloud rights of Activision games to French game publisher Ubisoft Entertainment.
“It will allow Ubisoft to offer Activision’s content under any business model, including through multigame subscription services. It will also help to ensure that cloud gaming providers will be able to use non-Windows operating systems for Activision content, reducing costs and increasing efficiency,” the CMA said.
The UK’s regulatory U-turn
Regulators globally were concerned that the takeover would reduce competition in the gaming market, in particular around cloud gaming. Microsoft could also take key Activision games like Call of Duty and make them exclusive to Xbox and other Microsoft platforms, the officials contended.
Cloud gaming is seen as the next industry frontier, offering subscription services that allow people to stream games just as they would movies or shows on Netflix. It could even remove the need for expensive consoles, with users playing the games on PCs, mobile and TVs instead.
Microsoft logo is seen on a smartphone placed on displayed Activision Blizzard logo in this illustration taken January 18, 2022.
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Specifically, the U.K. regulator argued when it blocked the takeover in April that allowing the deal to go ahead would give Microsoft a strong position in the nascent cloud gaming market.
Authorities in the European Union were the first major regulator to clear the deal in May, after Microsoft offered concessions to the EU.
At the time, the CMA said it stood by its initial decision to block the transaction because the compromises presented to the EU would allow Microsoft to “set the terms and conditions for this market for the next ten years.”
Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Federal Trade Commission was fighting a legal battle with Microsoft in an effort to get the Activision takeover scrapped. In July, however, a judge blocked the FTC’s attempt to do so, clearing the way for the deal to go ahead in the U.S.
Just hours later, the CMA said it was “ready to consider any proposals from Microsoft to restructure the transaction” and allay the regulator’s concerns.
Microsoft concessions to the UK
In August, Microsoft offered concessions to the CMA in its second attempt to get the deal cleared.
Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not acquire cloud rights for existing Activision PC and console games, or for new games released by Activision during the next 15 years. Instead, these rights will be divested to Ubisoft Entertainment before Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision, according to the CMA.
“With the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, we’ve made sure Microsoft can’t have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market,” Sarah Cardell, CEO of the CMA, said in a statement.
“As cloud gaming grows, this intervention will ensure people get more competitive prices, better services and more choice. We are the only competition agency globally to have delivered this outcome.”
While the U.K. approved the deal, the CMA, which has been growing increasingly aggressive in its actions to scrutinize big mergers, fired a parting shot at Microsoft in which it slammed the tech giant’s negotiation tactics.
“Businesses and their advisors should be in no doubt that the tactics employed by Microsoft are no way to engage with the CMA,” Cardell said.
“Microsoft had the chance to restructure during our initial investigation but instead continued to insist on a package of measures that we told them simply wouldn’t work. Dragging out proceedings in this way only wastes time and money.”
‘Final regulatory hurdle’
The CMA was the last major regulator holding up the Activision takeover.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he is “grateful” for the CMA’s review and decision.
“We have now crossed the final regulatory hurdle to close this acquisition, which we believe will benefit players and the gaming industry worldwide,” Smith said.
Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, told employees in an email that he is “excited for our next chapter together with Microsoft and the endless possibilities it creates for you and for our players.”
Throughout the regulatory scrutiny, Microsoft had been trying to show regulators and its closest competitors that it will not make games exclusive.
The U.S. tech giant signed a deal in February to bring Xbox games to Nvidia’s cloud gaming service and struck a 10-year deal to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players on the same day as Xbox, “with full feature and content parity.” Microsoft also signed a deal in July with its biggest rival Sony to bring Call of Duty to the Japanese firm’s PlayStation gaming console.
Technology
Nvidia positioned to weather Trump tariffs, chip demand ‘off the charts,’ says Altimeter’s Gerstner
Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.
“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.
President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.
The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.
Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.
Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”
He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.
“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”
Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images
YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok.
The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.
Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.
The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement.
Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.
“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”
WATCH: TikTok is a digital Trojan horse, says Hayman Capital’s Kyle Bass
CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Via Reuters
Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.
Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.
Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.
Semiconductor stocks also felt the pain, with Marvell Technology, Arm Holdings and Micron Technology falling more than 8% each. Broadcom and Lam Research dropped 6%, while Advanced Micro Devices declined more than 4% Software stocks ServiceNow and Fortinet fell more than 5% each.
The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.
Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.
China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”
The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.
Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.
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