“The Fee is rigorously assessing whether or not the developments within the UK require one other notification to the Fee,” says European Fee spokesperson Arianna Podesta in a press release to The Verge.
One other notification to the EU may sign an extra assessment of a deal that regulators on the European Fee cleared earlier this 12 months. Whereas the EU had cloud gaming issues similar to the EU, it secured treatments as a part of that approval, granting EU customers a free license to stream through “any cloud sport streaming companies of their alternative” all present and future Activision Blizzard PC and console video games that they’ve a license for. Cloud suppliers can even be provided a free license to stream these video games in EU markets.
On the time of that approval, Microsoft additionally dedicated, in a tweet from Microsoft president Brad Smith, that these licenses “will apply globally” and be utilized “robotically to competing cloud gaming companies.” Whereas Microsoft says the restructured transaction received’t have an effect on Microsoft’s obligations to the European Fee, Ubisoft will now management licensing outdoors of EU markets.
In actuality, meaning a cloud gaming service may begin within the EU with a free license, however it could now want Ubisoft to grant it a license if it needed to function within the US, for instance. Microsoft had been planning to use these licenses freely globally, nevertheless it’s now surrendering Activision Blizzard cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft outdoors of the EU.
The restructured deal implies that if Microsoft does shut this proposed acquisition, then it’ll additionally want to hunt a license from Ubisoft for Activision Blizzard video games on its Xbox Cloud Gaming service outdoors of the EU. It won’t be able to launch Activision Blizzard video games solely on Xbox Cloud Gaming, nor will it have unique management over the licensing phrases of Activision Blizzard video games on rival companies.
UK regulators are already treating this as a brand new deal, with the Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) opening a brand new “part 1” investigation into this restructured deal. Microsoft will now want to attend to see if the European Fee additionally wants a refresh notification for the deal and extra regulatory complications.