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The FTC is trying to stop Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard


Image for article titled Report: 'Likely' To Fight Microsoft's Purchase of Activision Blizzard [Update]

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politics To be Report that, “according to three persons with knowledge of the matter, The Federal Trade Commission “will likely file an antitrust lawsuit to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of video game giant Activision Blizzard.

FTC, encouraged by their recent success in preventing the merger of the book publishers Penguin Random House and Simon & Schusterno official announcement has been made, and politics report said “a lawsuit challenging the agreement is not guaranteed.

The steps are, however, was done to prepare one, with “much of the hard work” already done, such as getting a deposit from the bosses of Microsoft (Satya Nadella) and Activision Blizzard (Bobby Kotick). Because of this, it is said that “if the agency continues to handle a case, it could come as soon as next month.

Any antitrust case has a pretty clear goal: the FTC would argue that allowing major platform owners to buy Activision Blizzard, one of the world’s largest third-party publishers, would gives Microsoft an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

That argument and process was already underway in Europe. In the first day of this month, The European Union “opened a full investigation” into the proposed deal, said in a statement:

The Commission’s preliminary investigation found that the transaction could significantly reduce competition in the console and PC video game distribution markets, including multi-game subscription services and/or game streaming service in the cloud and for PC operating systems.

The preliminary investigation suggests that Microsoft may have the ability as well as a potential economic incentive to engage in foreclosure strategies against rival console video game distributors. by Microsoft.

Meanwhile, in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority is also deal investigation, speak a merger “can be expected to significantly reduce competition in any market or market in the UK for goods or services.

The interesting thing is politics report also mentioned Google as an “inferior” competitor to the merger, saying, “The company has argued that Microsoft has intentionally degraded the quality of its Game Pass subscription service when used with Google’s Chrome operating system, and that owning Activision would further encourage them to do so, ultimately. will drive hardware sales toward Microsoft and away from Google.

UPDATE 10:00 p.m. ET: An Activision spokesperson told Kotaku:

Any suggestion that trading could lead to anti-competitive effects is completely absurd. This merger will benefit gamers and the US gaming industry, especially as we face increasingly stiff competition from abroad. We are committed to continuing to work with regulators around the globe to allow transactions to proceed, but will not hesitate to fight to protect transactions if required.

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