It's Been 12 Months Since Xbox Faced A Major Activision Blizzard Crisis

Last year was absolutely packed full of news about Xbox's continual attempts to acquire Activision Blizzard in various countries around the world, but a major roadblock almost put a stop to everything 12 months ago.

Yes, it's been almost an entire year since the UK's Competition and Markets Authority blocked Microsoft's acquisition of the company, stating at the time that there were concerns about Xbox dominating the cloud gaming market.

"The cloud allows UK gamers to avoid buying expensive gaming consoles and PCs and gives them much more flexibility and choice as to how they play. Allowing Microsoft to take such a strong position in the cloud gaming market just as it begins to grow rapidly would risk undermining the innovation that is crucial to the development of these opportunities."

Looking back at the Pure Xbox comments is pretty fascinating. Plenty of us really weren't sure that the Activision Blizzard acquisition would actually go ahead, and some simply believed that the UK might have to be avoided entirely.

Fortunately, things resolved themselves in the end. A big reason was because Microsoft sold a bunch of Activision Blizzard cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft, with the CMA describing the new deal as making "important changes".

Nevertheless, the whole saga isn't necessarily over yet. Although the European Commission and UK CMA were eventually won over, the US Federal Trade Commission remains unhappy with the acquisition to this day, and continues to challenge Microsoft over it. A failed request for a preliminary injunction put a huge dent in the FTC plans, however.

Looking back, this was a truly crazy time for Xbox and the industry as a whole that will forever occupy a spot in the history books, and now we can finally look forward to all the ActiBlizz goodness coming our way on Xbox Game Pass.

Do you remember this? Did you think the acquisition was over? Let us know your thoughts down below.