We hear the European Commission approved Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard King.

Three sources have told Reuters that what the Redmond tech giant has recently shelled out will be enough to eventually own one of the biggest publishers in the gaming industry. We reported on these deals: Call of Duty titles will be available on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service and Nintendo’s consoles for ten years if the Satya Nadella-led US company can take over the Bobby Kotick-led publishing monster (which was brought together by Vivendi, which owned Blizzard at the time, and since the merger, Bobby Kotick has been running Activision Blizzard King).

So the EU’s antitrust concerns were supposedly averted by Microsoft, allowing the company to butter up the regulators. Sony, of course, is trying to block the deal wherever it can, and Microsoft has offered them a deal, but Jim Ryan’s position is adamant. MS also offered Valve a ten-year presence, but Gabe Newell turned it down because he didn’t see the point (his position is understandable: Steam is the biggest PC gaming market, and Microsoft would lose money if it left games only on the Microsoft Store and Battle.net…)

Sony presumably fears that Microsoft could scare off players who spend big on PlayStation platforms (or for its platforms!) because of Call of Duty. Still, it seems that all it needs to do to convince lawmakers is to get Microsoft to promise to stick to the agreements. Of course, breaking them is always easy, as Microsoft is a massive company with essentially infinite money from the Windows, Office, and Azure trio. So, it can afford to pay fines of one sort or another to reduce competition.

You have to admit that it is what it’s all about. You don’t have to go far to see someone accusing others of what they are committing…

Source: PCGamer