In yet another win for the Redmond corporation, the Microsoft–Activision deal has been cleared by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission. The Japanese antitrust watchdog has found that the deal will “not substantially restrain competition in a certain field of trade,” and has subsequently given it a green light in the region.

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Japan’s regulatory review of Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard began last summer, and has now found that the deal bears no significant anticompetitive risk. Notably, the approval has been issued despite premier opponent Sony’s undisputed hold over the Japanese console gaming market. The Japanese Fair Trade Commission has found that the deal will “not substantially restrain competition in a certain field of trade,” and as such, will not be issuing a cease and desist order against it.

This development now brings the total number of markets the deal has been cleared in to five, after previous approvals from regulators in Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Chile, and Serbia. The EU is quite likely to clear the deal as well after Microsoft secured the support of Nvidia and Nintendo in February, and the UK CMA has also provisionally found that the deal is not likely to result in the console gaming SLC scenario it previously outlined.

Source: JFTC (via Tom Warren)