Microsoft, Activision to sell streaming rights to secure biggest video gaming deal
investing.comBy Kate Holton and Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) -«Call of Duty» maker Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) will sell its streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment in a fresh attempt to win approval from Britain's anti-trust regulator for its $69 billion sale to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Shares of Activision were trading 1.1% higher, while Microsoft was up 0.7% before noon in New York. Ubisoft shares listed in Paris closed 8.8% higher, the biggest gainer on the pan-European STOXX 600 index.
Microsoft announced the biggest gaming deal in history in early 2022, but the acquisition was blocked by Britain's competition regulator, which was concerned the U.S. computing giant would gain too much control of the nascent cloud gaming market.
After months of back and forth, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Tuesday it had stuck by its original decision to veto the deal, forcing Microsoft to come forward with new terms.
Under the restructured deal, Microsoft will not be able to release Activision games like «Overwatch» and «Diablo» exclusively on its own cloud streaming service — Xbox Cloud Gaming – or to exclusively control the licensing terms for rival services.
Instead, French gaming rival Ubisoft will acquire the cloud streaming rights for Activision's existing PC and console games, and any new games released by Activision in the next 15 years.
That will apply globally but not in Europe, where Brussels had already accepted the original deal. In Europe, Ubisoft will get a non-exclusive licence for Activision's rights to enable it to offer those games in that region too.
EU antitrust regulators are examining whether Microsoft's proposal to gain UK approval would affect its concessions to the European Commission, a
Read more on investing.com
