The United Kingdom’s competition regulator blocked an attempted takeover of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, the developer behind hit video games like Call of Duty, in what would have been the biggest takeover in gaming history.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) prevented the $68.7bn (£55bn) purchase on concerns it would crush the cloud gaming market.
The union would have created a gaming giant, fusing Activision’s plethora of “AAA” titles, which also include World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Candy Crush Saga and Overwatch, with Microsoft’s burgeoning group of in-house developers, its Xbox consoles and your pc game controls.
The CMA’s decision seemed to tilt in Microsoft’s favor after it announced earlier this month that it was pleased with the Seattle-based company’s promises to make Call of Duty available on other platforms for at least a decade. Those promises, the regulator said, preserved competition in the home console market, against the protests of PlayStation owner Sony.
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