Microsoft Corp. Executives They tried to assure employees of the Xbox gaming division of the possibility of approving the planned purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc. for $ 69 billion, noting that success in games depends not only on the deal.
Source: Pixabay.com
On Wednesday, April 26, the UK antimonopoly authority vetoed the deal. This was an outstanding decision for the industry in a negative sense. The deal, if implemented, could become the largest in the history of the gaming industry.
At a general meeting of employees of the gaming division on the morning of April 27, the head of Microsoft gaming, Phil Spencer, as reported by the media, citing his informed sources, said that the regulator’s decision was disappointing and was slowing down the approval process. The insider also said that Spencer stated the firmness of the company regarding the intention to conclude a deal.
Microsoft President Brad Smith is preparing a response to the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Spencer told about this during a staff meeting. Also, according to him, financial director Amy Hood, who is responsible for the acquisition transactions, held a meeting of senior management on the fact of the decision of the British antimonopoly authority.
The head of Xbox said that the implementation of the deal was an important part of the efforts to intensively implement Microsoft’s plans in the gaming industry, but the entire gaming strategy of the company is not focused on it. Separately, he noted that moving forward is possible without Activision.
The British Competition and Markets Authority stated that concerns related to the implementation of the transaction cannot be eliminated by means such as the sale of Call of Duty or other methods, including promises to provide competitors with a platform to host their gaming product. Microsoft announced its intention to appeal against this decision.
The CMA’s concerns are based on the assumption that the deal will reduce the volume of innovation and will cause a decrease in the range of offerings for gamers in the cloud gaming business, which is at the stage of active growth.
The UK gaming sector, in turn, reacted positively to Microsoft’s bid to acquire the American firm Activision. Sir Ian Livingstone, the co-founder of Games Workshop, said the objections from the regulator seemed strange.
The president of Microsoft called blocking the deal a harmful step for the UK. A multibillion-dollar business agreement cannot be implemented on a global scale due to opposition. Smith said the decision to block the agreement marked the darkest day in the history of the tech giant’s work in the British market.
US and EU regulators have not yet decided on the approval of Microsoft’s purchase of Activision.
Both Microsoft and Activision said they would appeal the CMA’s decision.
Gareth Sutcliffe, senior gaming analyst at Enders Analysis, said the deal-making process had reached an impasse even earlier. In his opinion, Microsoft did not carry out the necessary explanatory work with regulatory authorities to expand the space for the implementation of the business agreement.
As we have reported earlier, Microsoft Develops AI Chip.
