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New Zealand have approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard

Published: 06:43, 08 August 2023

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New Zealand have approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard

New Zealand Commerce Commission have approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard

New Zealand Commerce Commission have officially approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. New Zealand say the merger will not have a significant impact on the competition.

Microsoft are one step close to closing the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Today, New Zealand's Commerce Commission have officially announced that they have approved the merger, which, according to their findings, "is unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any New Zealand market."

Microsoft can close the acquisition in New Zealand at this moment but they will probably wait until the UK regulator CMA also give their green light to this deal as the FTC in the United States and CMA in the United Kingdom are probably the two most important regulators that need to approve the deal so Microsoft can close.

CMA and Microsoft recently asked to pause their legal battle and negotiate a new deal that could see Microsoft sell off their gaming cloud services to a UK company, in order to please the CMA.

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In their final report, New Zealand's Commerce Commission stated that Call of Duty and other Activision are popular in New Zealand but they are not must-have titles that would significantly harm other console platforms.

“While Activision games, in particular Call of Duty, are popular with NZ gamers, our enquiries did not find they are likely to be ‘must have’ to compete with MS in NZ."

Microsoft are expected to close the Activision Blizzard acquisition very soon now that the FTC have pretty much failed to block the merger. Once the deal is closed, Xbox Game Pass players can expect a large library of Activision Blizzard games such as older Call of Duty titles, Crash Bandicoot games and much more.

Klobrille

Microsoft can now close Activision Blizzard deal in the United States

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard should be completed very soon

Newer Call of Duty games probably won't come to Game Pass until 2024/2025 as some documents shown at FTC v Microsoft hearing revealed that Sony has marketing deals with Activision that prevent the shooter from coming to Game Pass for the next couple of years.