One of the biggest, and most long-awaited, gaming acquisition deals in history might be just one week away from actually happening. A new report claims Microsoft is making plans to officially announce that its $69 billion deal to purchase Activision Blizzard will be closed on Friday, October 13.
The report comes from The Verge, citing unnamed sources. The same report does point out that while Microsoft is making plans around that date to close the deal, all of that depends on the final approval of the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
The CMA initially would not approve of Microsoft's plans to buy the game publisher back in April. At the time, the decision came as somewhat of a surprise. The CMA claimed that such a purchase could cause Microsoft to have too much control of the cloud gaming industry.
While it looked for a while that Microsoft and the CMA would battle it out in a UK regulatory appeals court, the CMA instead allowed Microsoft to adjust its deal. In August, Microsoft presented a different proposal, where it would let Ubisoft get the cloud gaming rights to all current and future Activision Blizzard deals for 15 years.
That change seems to have changed some minds at the CMA. In September it gave provisional approval to the deal, while at the same time also stating they would also consult with Microsoft for some last "limited residual concerns."
The CMA also set up a deadline for people to offer their comments on the deal. The deadline for sending those comments expires today, and after that, the CMA should make its final decision sometime next week. Unless it makes another surprise announcement, the group is expected to approve the deal.
While Activision Blizzard could finally become part of Microsoft in a week, the company still has to battle the US Federal Trade Commission, which has tried to unsuccessfully block the deal in court. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule on this current court case in early December.
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