Can Microsoft complete the last level of its takeover game?

Hello, and you're listening to the Marketplace Morning Report live from the BBC World Service.

I'm Leanna Burn, a very good morning to you.

Microsoft has made some big changes to its plan for taking over the video game company Activision Blizzard.

It's trying to convince the UK competition watchdog to change its mind after initially said no to the $69 billion deal back in April.

And it's got past EU and US regulators.

So, could this revive Microsoft's chance of completing the takeover of the Call of Duty Maker?

Here's the BBC's Peter Roddock to explain. Hi, Peter.

Hello, thanks for having us chat to me.

Peter, why did the competition and markets that already blocked this takeover in the first place remind us?

Yeah, so there have been really big objections to this deal from rivals like Sony.

So they were concerned that Microsoft could stop major games being available to its own PlayStation business, for example.

Microsoft always argued it would be stupid for them to stop selling successful games to millions of potential customers.

And they signed agreements with Sony and Nintendo promising that Call of Duty games, for example, would be available on their consoles.

However, UK regulators in particular were really worried about the growing cloud gaming market.

So to cross the line, Microsoft in Europe, they offered concessions essentially offering royalty free licenses to cloud gaming platforms to stream Activision games.

But the CMA just said that didn't go far enough.

They thought that Microsoft would still be able to set the terms and conditions for this growing cloud game market for the next 10 years.

And that's why they blocked the original deal.

And so Microsoft, they've come back with new proposals as to how this takeover would work.

What's different this time and?

So under this new deal, Microsoft now won't buy the rights for any of Activision's existing or new games stored in the cloud for the next 15 years.

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