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Activision’s “Call of Duty” games are pictured at a store in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, US January 18, 2022.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
The UK’s competition regulator said on Friday it was extending the deadline for its review MicrosoftAcquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard within six weeks.
The extension will give the watchdog more time to review the parties’ proposals to resolve its concerns after it temporarily halted a campaign to block the deal.
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“The Inquiry Group has decided to extend by six weeks… as it considers there are special reasons for doing so. The revised period will therefore end on 29 August 2023,” the UK Competition and Markets Authority He said Friday.
The British regulator has been a vocal opponent of Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, comprehensively blocking the deal in April over competition concerns in the emerging cloud gaming market.
The CMA appeared to soften its tone earlier in the week, suggesting it was ready to resume discussions with the Redmond tech giant.
“We stand ready to consider any proposals from Microsoft to restructure the transaction in a way that will address the concerns set out in our final report,” a spokesperson for the Capital Markets Authority told CNBC via email on Tuesday.
The CMA’s concerns centered on the potential for Microsoft to make Activision’s games exclusive to its own platform, as the tech giant sets its sights on the emerging cloud gaming market — technology that will effectively allow users to stream games to remote servers, such as Netflix Viewers do with a movie.
Microsoft’s multiple franchise offers to the CMA have yet to bear fruit. In February, the CMA responded with a notice of potential remedies, which included selling its Call of Duty core game-related unit and divesting some of Activision Blizzard’s business.
The deal also met opposition in the US, but appeared to gain traction in the US earlier this week after the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in favor of the two companies. Since then, the US Federal Tracking Commission on Wednesday filed an appeal against the decision to deny the request for a preliminary injunction, which would have prevented the deal from completing.
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