Microsoft is planning a major new deal with Ubisoft in an attempt to get the CMA to approve the Activision Blizzard buyout.
There's been a lot to keep up with in the long-suffering deal between Microsoft and Activision over the last few weeks. Microsoft went to court with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to argue that its proposed acquisition of Activision was fair, and won, in a huge move forward for the deal.
However, Microsoft is still trying to win over the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), who decided to block the deal back in April. This is where Microsoft's new deal with Ubisoft comes in.
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One of the chief reasons the UK blocked the original Microsoft Activision deal was fear over the company getting a monopoly and actively hurting cloud-gaming. No, I don't really get the logic either.
Anyway, while that old deal is now dead in the UK, Microsoft has announced an alternative plan in an attempt to woo the CMA and quell any fears of a monopoly. To do this, Microsoft has proposed handing the Xbox streaming rights in the UK to a separate company: Ubisoft.
In thus new plan, the Assassin's Creed publisher would add Xbox (and, by extension, Activision Blizzard games) to its Ubisoft+ streaming service for the next 15 years. This means franchises like Call Of Duty and Crash Bandicoot would be only be available to stream in the UK through Ubisoft.
At the time of writing we have no idea what the CMA makes of this compromise, although on paper it seems like a simple enough way around the main concern. Microsoft has submitted its proposal, and the CMA will make a decision before 18 October, so stay tuned.
If the CMA rejects this new plan, we have no idea what Microsoft will do. We do know that it's not out of the question for Xbox and Activision games to be pulled from the UK in order to get the deal through everywhere else, although we also know that's not an option anyone wants to take lightly.
