​

After months and months of litigations, legal actions and disclosed documents from all involved parties, a California judge (Judge Corley) has come to a ruling submitted today in the case, which has been on going for the last few weeks.

Judge Corley has submitted a ruling DENYING the FTC's preliminary injuction motion against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, with the following statement:

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox.

It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services. This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted—perhaps even terminated—pending resolution of the FTC administrative action.

For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

The ruling will allow Microsoft to close the merge with Activision Blizzard ahead of its scheduled July 18th deadline, which is just a week off from the ruling, and while this surely allows Microsoft to carry on with the merge, there's still the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) in the UK blocking the proposed merge overseas, with an appeal hearing scheduled on July 28th.

Europe in general has given the merge the green light according to several regulators, so basically it's only the UK's CMA which is currently halting the full merge for some additional time, and while it is possible that Microsoft might still go on without the UK's intervention, the most likely case is that they could extend the agreement to a date after the CMA hearing to clear the merge up worldwide.

UPDATE: Just a few minutes after the news of the court ruling, both Microsoft and the UK regulators have agreed to pause their battle to negotiate, which could mean that Microsoft might have a clean slate to go ahead with the acquisition without issues, if they do resolve the negotiations.

Source

 

[Reploid]

bb soony

 

[ShadowOne333]

bb soony

They must be fuming their asses real bad now.
I made the joke earlier in private that if I were in Microsoft's position, I'd pull the same tactic Sony's been doing with some of their games, meaning they get to be Sony-exclusive for one full year, and then they can release on other platform.

I'd do the same with Sony and Call of Duty, except by that point they've getting last year's Call of Duty given how they release on a yearly basis.

 

[Kioku]

This is what happens when you can’t get your shit together. Instead of playing victim, they should have focused on facts and statistics. Read some things concerning this case and it seems like a long SNL skit..

 

[Leen]

sucks to be Sony and good for Microsoft

 

[Bladexdsl]

RIP Activision Blizzard..o wait they were already dead to me

 

[James_]

This does suck a bit, but 1. I don't even know what the fuck the FTC was even planning to do to try and stop them, and 2. Actiblizzard have been in a very rough patch and in hot water for a long while now, so this could help them instead of harming them. Though I doubt much will change if they don't kick out Bobby...

Then again, I also don't want Microsoft (and Sony, for that matter) to have a massive monopoly by buying up basically every game company ever conceived.
Except for Nintendo obviously, they were literally laughed out the building when Microsoft tried to buy them like what, 20 years ago?

Bonus edit: I've heard the CMA is also pulling the brakes, fucking lmao

 

[Valwinz]

The fact that Sony is so freak out off losing COD tells you their current state.

They bet all on western studios and is now paying the price. They have nothing to offer after they turn their back on japan

 

[YuseiFD]

This is still going on ??

 

[lordrand11]

The fact that Sony is so freak out off losing COD tells you their current state.

They bet all on western studios and is now paying the price. They have nothing to offer after they turn their back on japan

They offer money to the developers to exclusively not offer it on Microsoft, that's what they've got to offer xD

On a serious note, this is a Minecraft situation, I've sincerely doubted since the beginning they would offer a lesser product on any platform given the revenue the title brings. If anything they wanted it more for the King side of things considering the global reach of the smartphone market and CCS.

 

[SkittleDash]

I think the CMA has already retreated. lol

 

[KingVamp]

I'm conflicted.

That said, guess that means Nintendo has COD for at least 10 years.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I think the CMA has already retreated. lol

Indeed they have, apparently for supposed "negotations" with Microsoft, but more or less they know they might get fucked as well, so better reach a middle ground. I updated the OP to add the proper link to that as well.

 

[Delerious]

A company I don't care about buying another company I don't care about. Okay. Honestly though, the FTC's case was abysmal. How is it that the majority of their argument just summed up to "won't somebody think about Sony?" I also thought it was funny that Google blamed Microsoft for their failures, rather than blaming their own terrible business model.

 

[diggeloid]

I'm conflicted.

You're probably not as conflicted as the judge in this case, whose son is a Microsoft employee lol

 

[Kioku]

You're probably not as conflicted as the judge in this case, whose son is a Microsoft employee lol

People really grasping for straws here…

 

[diggeloid]

People really grasping for straws here…

wdym? That seems like a pretty obvious conflict of interests.

 

[chrisrlink]

the only reason I want MS to aquire them is cause the head of xbox division say they're intrested in Sierra and the revival of classic series like the various quest series (Police, Space,King's etc) all actiblizz have been doing is sicking lawyers on fan games and letting those series stagnate and also give those game original developers their jobs back or let them have a say or give story advice in development

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

Let's gooooooooo! We did it, xbros!!!

 

[Cortador]

the only reason I want MS to aquire them is cause the head of xbox division say they're intrested in Sierra and the revival of classic series like the various quest series (Police, Space,King's etc) all actiblizz have been doing is sicking lawyers on fan games and letting those series stagnate and also give those game original developers their jobs back or let them have a say or give story advice in development

Sierra, good times. Hopeful for the revival of some of their classics.