In a recent interview with CNBC, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the fate of the company’s bid to merge with Activision Blizzard now rests in the hands of U.K. regulators.
Last week Microsoft announced that it had presented to the CMA a restructured deal that would divest Activision’s cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft. Under the terms of this new deal, Microsoft would not be in a position to control licensing terms of Activision games on rival cloud gaming platforms.
In effort to assuage the CMA’s stated concerns over the emergent cloud gaming market, which was the primary reason it blocked the deal back in April. In spite of the fact that Microsoft has signed various deals with competitors, including Sony.
“I think we need to let the regulators speak for themselves,” Smith told interviewers. He added,
They have decisions that need to be made, especially in the U.K., but from my vantage point, what we’ve really tried to do is take these concerns to heart…It will be up to the regulators, especially now in the U.K., to decide whether that path is clear.”
On the topic of regulator’s concerns that Microsoft could leverage its ownership of high-profile franchises like Call of Duty to withhold them from competitors, Smith said “We haven’t tried to dismiss them. We haven’t tried to downplay them. We haven’t tried to ignore them.”
The deal’s renewed deadline extends until October 18.
Featured image via CNBC.
