In December, the FTC entered a legal proceeding to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The date of the first hearing before the trial between Microsoft and the FTC is now known. The parties will appear in the court on January 3 and discuss the fate of Microsofts $69 billion bid for Activision Blizzard. The purchase was announced in the year of 2022, and was expected to close at June 2023.

Help

The FTC will have difficult time convincing the judge of his case. First, Microsoft isn’t pushing for a horizontal merger that would eliminate one of its direct competitors. A second time, the company has signaled that it’s willing to make concessions in order to complete the deal. As a result of the merger, Microsoft promises to release more Call of Duty games for at least 10 years on competing platforms. It was also said that the franchise would appear on Nintendo consoles.

The Commission can’t bear its burden of showing that the deal will make things worse for consumers because it will allow consumers to play Activision games on new platforms and to see them in new and more accessible way, wrote Microsoft last month.

The competition and market authority oversee this deal, too. The agency said that it is looking for an in-depth investigation into the alleged merger.

Source: French