Microsoft’s intended acquisition of Activision Blizzard will not have major adverse effects on competition and should therefore not be blocked, says the Japanese market regulator. This JFTC examined cloud gaming and the supply of games.
The acquisition is ‘unlikely to lead to a significant restriction of competition’, according to the Japan Fair Trade Commission. In the study, the JFTC examined, among other things, the extent to which Microsoft could refuse to release games. supply to consoles and streaming services, and what consequences this would have.
The JFTC saw no legal obstacles when offering games to consoles. There are also plenty of competing cloud service providers for cloud gaming and games are delivered digitally. Therefore, according to the JFTC, the acquisition does not have a major impact on competition. The regulator has therefore stopped its investigation into the takeover and says it will not stop it.
American, British and European regulators are still investigating the takeover. The British Competition and Markets Authority said last week that it had fewer concerns about competition in the console market, but still concerned about cloud gaming. The European Commission will make a decision no later than May 22 and the US FTC is a lawsuit has been launched to stop the acquisition.
