China has reportedly approved Microsoft’s bid to acquire Activision-Blizzard for $69 billion. Microsoft’s efforts to acquire the Call of Duty developer have been met with several roadblocks since its announcement in January 2022, but the tech giant has some respite with this announcement.
The announcement of the proposed acquisition sent ripples across the gaming industry because of the sheer magnitude of the acquisition, which, if it goes through, would be the biggest in the industry. However, regulatory authorities across the world chose to scrutinize this further considering the effect this would have on Microsoft’s competitors in the global gaming market. Incidentally, UK's CMA, USA’s FTC, and the EU chose to take their time to conduct their due diligence on the matter, and two have these have already given their verdicts. The CMA chose to block the Microsoft-Activision acquisition, and the EU gave a conditional approval to the deal.
As reported by Seeking Alpha, "China's State Administration for Market Regulation granted unconditional approval for the deal late in a Phase III review," which was confirmed by the outlet’s sources. This definitely boosts Microsoft’s chances of completing the acquisition as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Japan, Serbia, South Africa, and Ukraine have already given their nod of approval to the deal.
Despite this, there is still no clarity on whether the deal will actually happen, as the FTC is yet to reveal its final ruling on the matter. The US regulatory authority sued Microsoft for its acquisition attempts. Sony, who has been the most vocal competitor against this deal, believes the future of Call of Duty titles on PlayStation will be affected, despite Microsoft repeatedly stating otherwise.
Microsoft’s way of convincing the regulatory authorities was to hand out 10-year deals for Call of Duty to different platforms, which include Nvidia GeForce Now, Nintendo, Boosteroid, and Ubitus. Interestingly, Sony refused a similar deal from Microsoft and refuses to budge in its stance against the proposed deal.
Source: Seeking Alpha