Xbox's monumental acquisition of Activision Blizzard is the biggest of its kind in the gaming industry. It's had multiple hurdles to jump over to get closer to actually happening, but one of the most noteworthy might be about to pass.
According to a report by the financial analysts over at Seeking Alpha, Microsoft has submitted all of the acquisition's relevant information to the FTC, America's Federal Trade Commission. Apparently, this happened "several weeks ago" and we're now waiting on the FTC's response.
As per the FTC's guidance page, once both parties (in this case Microsoft and Activision Blizzard) have handed over all of the FTC's requests, there's a 30 day wait for the merger to move forward to its next stage.
"For most transactions requiring a filing, both buyer and seller must file forms and provide data about the industry and their own businesses. Once the filing is complete, the parties must wait 30 days (15 days in the case of a cash tender offer or a bankruptcy) or until the agencies grant early termination of the waiting period before they can consummate the deal."
If the FTC has no issues with the information provided by both the seller and the buyer, then the deal could potentially be approved once the 30 day window closes! If not, then we may have to wait a little longer for the two companies, along with the FTC, to figure out what happens next.
Of course, there are other government bodies looking at this deal as well, notably the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, but given that both companies are US-based, FTC approval is seen as the most important of all.
When the deal does eventually go through and clear all hurdles, Xbox will be keen to bolster its Game Pass service as soon as possible. The company is expected to add as many Activision Blizzard games to the library as it can, barring any existing deals with PlayStation of course.
What are you most excited to play once Xbox merges with Activision Blizzard? Let us know below!
[source seekingalpha.com, via videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 15
Hopefully it closes soon and we can actually get to playing the games on Game Pass.
Been holding out on Diablo 2 myself.
The most immediate benefit to 'Xbox' will be the acquisition of Activision Publishing and all its licences. That will give MS the opportunity to Publish all their existing A/B Xbox games (those they own the license for) to Game Pass.
Whether that includes the latest 'CoD' game or not though will depend on the terms and agreements made with Sony who still have Marketing deals in place - possibly until 2023's new CoD.
If it does go through this year, then I wouldn't be surprised if Diablo IV ends up also releasing day and date into Game Pass too as MS would own Publishing rights and the IP. I know they showed it at their recent showcase and didn't list it as a Game Pass game, but that is more likely to be because until MS acquire Activision publishing and its publishing rights, they can't talk about that. They aren't going to make a deal with Activision when they can't legally (due to a takeover bid - same as Sony can't make new deals either) and would be pointless as they may end up owning the Publishing rights before the game releases...
If they can close this deal and start adding stuff to Game Pass before the end of the year, then that will be a huge selling point going into the Christmas period.
The most exciting thing about this is we will see some actual love giving to series like Tony Hawk, Spyro and Crash again, hell MS may even break apart the COD teams so they can go back to making games of their own instead of being slaves to COD.
From software owns the IP for sekiro so any sequel there would be multi plat but they would likely go elsewhere for a publisher
Hope that means Call of Duty on Game Pass then. Microsoft needs that this fall with their shortage of games.
Getting a lot of ABKs titles into Game Pass this year would be a good way to make up for the lack of titles this fall.
This is moving faster than I thought it would. Sounds like everything is on track and just waiting for all the final approvals. Looking forward to seeing more of these games added to gamepass.
Wonder how the European side of this is getting on and if that will put a spanner in the works.
@BAMozzy Indeed. Ironically 2022 could suddenly be pretty full if they stack Game Pass with COD and a range of other ActiBliz games.
What’s going on? Some fine folk over at PS watched a YouTube video and told me this would never go through!?
Cant wait!All this bureaucracy bs it's killing me,just give the ok already!
I hope this means:
At least one of those isn't a pipe-dream.
@Geezer That's exactly how I feel about it, man. I've been holding out on Diablo 2 myself as well.
Be interesting if it goes through before mw2 comes out then a Microsoft owned studio will be releasing a game for £70 lol
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