This is the epilogue of a saga that, for nearly two years, has involved the world's leading competition authorities. After vetoing it in April, London finally gave the green light on Friday morning to the biggest merger in the tech and media sector since AOL bought Time Warner in 2001. "We have cleared the final regulatory hurdle to complete this acquisition," Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement.
Nothing stands in the way of the $69 billion marriage between the computer giant and Activision, the largest American video game publisher ($7.5 billion in revenue in 2022). The latter owns some of the most powerful licenses in the industry: Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Candy Crush, a mobile game that, under its childish appearance, has generated more than $20 billion in revenue since its release online in 2012.
Birth of a Colossus
The alliance will make Microsoft the third largest video game player behind China's Tencent and Japan's Sony, the champion of video game consoles. Its PlayStation division fought hard to derail the merger, before giving up on July 16.
Read alsoTencent changes its strategic course in the West
Few believed such a conclusion last April. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had just said no to the deal. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), led by a president determined not to let the tech titans get in the way, was preparing for its trial. The European Commission was completing its in-depth investigation. But Microsoft has managed to turn around a desperate situation. It had to make concessions, find an ally in the form of the French Ubisoft, and try an incredible gamble that trapped Lina Khan's FTC.
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