Microsoft's Activision deal is looking less and less likely

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a full year since Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard.

The consequences of the buyout will be absolutely huge, assuming it goes ahead. Not only will it be the biggest video game acquisition of all time (it’s set to cost a whopping $68.7 billion, which is a ridiculous amount of money), but it’ll also mean that Microsoft will own the Call of Duty IP, which Sony is very unhappy about.

Take a look at some gameplay from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II below.

Things haven’t been smooth sailing for Microsoft and Activision, though. Back in December, the Federal Trade Commission filed a suit to block the acquisition. At the time, Activision boss Bobby Kotick reassured his staff that he was still confident the deal would close, as the “allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn't align with the facts”.

While the deal still has a good chance of going ahead, as GamesRadar+ reports, it may end up facing some significant delays. It was previously reported that the buyout was expected to go through by the end of fiscal year 2023 (the end of June 2023, basically), but the FTC has just published the scheduling order for the Microsoft/Activision case and…yeah, that’s not going to happen.

As it stands, the FTC isn’t set to start its hearing regarding the case until 2 August 2023. This date could shift back even further if there are delays to the proceedings, but even as it stands that’s over a month on from the original end of June deadline. We could be waiting some time before Microsoft and Activision can even think about wrapping the deal up.

Everything is still up in the air at the moment, but as of now, it definitely doesn’t look like we can expect the acquisition to go through as originally planned. Something tells me that Sony will be breathing a sigh of relief.