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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

 

[DuoForce]

Oh no, how will I play- oh wait, I have a PC too. Guess there is still no need for an Xbox

Post automatically merged: Jul 13, 2023

Microsoft will keep losing money to PC gamers who are either hackers or pirates who don't pay for the games.

I'm a Sony fan, but this is such a stupid take. Pirates don't even cause a dent in big selling games like COD. Plus, you're likely using windows, which, SURPRISE, is Microsoft!

 

[Skelletonike]

don't know why they are even bothering with the heaterbox it has no exclusives all the games are on pc and play better. zero reason to own an xbox

I bought a Series X recently and I have to say, as a console, it is great.
One of the best features it has and that I had never really heard about it tbh until I experienced it, is Quick Resume. Being able to change games, shut down the console, restart and pick right up where I was in more than one game at the same time, is phenomenal.

 

[RedColoredStars]

don't know why they are even bothering with the heaterbox it has no exclusives all the games are on pc and play better. zero reason to own an xbox

Did you know that comedy usually has some truth to it & that's what makes it comical? So your "heaterbox" comment has zero comedic value, since t's the PS5 that blows out 100+ °F air out of it. Not the Series X.

 

[urbanman2004]

M$, let's go. Sony must be punching the air right now

 

[RedColoredStars]

M$, let's go. Sony must be punching the air right now

Punching the air, with 15 more million consoles sold this gen than MS.

 

[smf]

The people commenting on how Sony is now doomed over COD. LOL!

This is gbatemp, most people are upset that they won't be able to pirate COD for PlayStation anymore

 

[Ampersound]

Can't wait until there is only one huge shitty company remaining.

 

[SaitamX38]

good new, as a kid i tought companies can directly get bought by other company but the system is complicated there are even courts who watch everything but i still dont know why sony have it much easier in buying companies even when microsoft is much richer and better organized than sony