Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, October 13 (Xinhua)-- the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) officially approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the developer of call of Duty, on Friday, and previous deal changes have largely addressed the agency's concerns.

Earlier this year, CMA blocked Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard's entire business for $68.7 billion because of concerns that the deal would hurt competition in British cloud games. After the deal was blocked, Microsoft submitted a restructuring deal for review by CMA in August.

CTOnews.com learned from the announcement that under the new agreement, Microsoft will not buy the rights to cloud games held by Activision Blizzard, but will sell it to an independent third-party Ubisoft Entertainment (Ubisoft) before the deal is completed.

CMA believes that the restructuring deal has made an important change, basically addressing the concerns raised earlier this year related to the original transaction.

"with the development of the cloud game market, the new agreement will prevent Microsoft from locking in competition for cloud games and retain competitive prices and services for cloud game customers in the UK," CMA said in a statement.

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, said: "We thank CMA for its thorough review and decision today. We have now overcome the final regulatory hurdle to complete this acquisition, which we believe will benefit players and the gaming industry around the world."

According to the Nasdaq official website, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) shares were suspended, the suspension code T1 means "trading suspended, waiting for major news release."

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