“Call of Duty” maker Activision will sell its non-European streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment, potential owner Microsoft said on Tuesday, in a bid to secure the biggest deal in video games to date through British regulators. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) was the only regulator to block Microsoft’s $69 billion (Rs 56,548 crore) deal to buy Activision Blizzard as a test of its leverage post-Brexit.
Microsoft said Tuesday that it considers its new proposal to be a “substantially different transaction” and that it expects the CMA review process to be completed by Oct. 18.
In a statement, the CMA said the amended deal would “allow Ubisoft to commercialize these rights to other cloud gaming service providers, including Microsoft itself.”
Ubisoft’s Paris-listed shares were up 6.5 percent by 0723 GMT, making them the biggest gainers on the pan-European STOXX 600 index.
British regulators took the rare step of reopening an investigation into the deal in July after Microsoft said the commitments accepted by the European Union and the new deal with Sony constituted significant changes.
But the company said on Tuesday it did not accept Microsoft’s reasoning, forcing the U.S. giant to re-sign a new deal to address its concerns about competition in the nascent cloud streaming market.
Under the new terms, Microsoft will not be able to exclusively distribute Activision Blizzard games on its own cloud streaming service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, or control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games on rival services.
The new deal involves streaming rights outside the European Economic Area, reflecting Brussels’ approval of the deal.
However, Ubisoft will also receive a non-exclusive license to Activision Blizzard’s European game rights, enabling the French group to broadcast them in the EU as well.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
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