The European Commission has now cleared the Microsoft-Activision deal in the EU region, providing Microsoft a much-needed win after its troubles in the UK and Redfall’s poorly-received launch. Having found that the deal was unlikely to harm console gaming competition in the region but could pose a risk to cloud gaming competition, the Commission believes that Microsoft’s proposed remedies for the matter are satisfactory, and has cleared the acquisition dependent on the Redmond corporation’s full compliance with its commitments.

• Related Reading: Redfall: Phil Spencer Admits He’s Disappointed the Xbox Community, Says They Will “Revisit Process”

Following a lengthy, turbulent review process in the UK, the nation’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) blocked the Microsoft-Activision deal on the basis of unresolved cloud gaming concerns. In the EU, however, Microsoft seems to have successfully addressed regulators’ concerns in the market. Like the CMA, the European Commission ultimately found that the deal did not pose any significant harm to console gaming competition in the EU, believing that Microsoft simply did not have the incentive to withhold Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard IPs from PlayStation and other competitors, and could not harm competition even if it chose to do so owing to lesser demand for Activision’s games in the region.

Instead, the Commission found that the deal posed a much greater potential danger to cloud gaming competition in the region, as bringing Activision Blizzard IPs to cloud gaming services would significantly promote growth for the fledgling medium, but could also harm rival services were Microsoft to make Call of Duty and the like exclusive to Xbox Game Pass. Additionally, Microsoft could also choose to harm Windows’ competitors by worsening the playability of Activision games through the cloud on rival operating systems.

Where the Commission diverges from the CMA is in its reception of Microsoft’s proposed remedies for the matter. The regulator found that Microsoft’s 10-year offer to provide a free license to EEA consumers to play any Activision Blizzard games they own through any cloud streaming service of their choice (in the case of BYOG services) and a corresponding free license to such providers to allow EEA consumers to stream Activision games through their services fully deals with its reservations. In fact, the Commission states that such an arrangement would “represent a significant improvement for cloud game streaming compared to the current situation,” given that Activision Blizzard and its games currently have no presence in the cloud gaming market.

Microsoft and Activision are currently preparing to appeal the CMA’s decision in the UK, while verdicts on the acquisition in the US and China are still awaited. Stay tuned here at MP1st for all upcoming news and announcements about the Microsoft-Activision deal.

Source: European Commission