The remedies made to the new acquisition deal will properly address concerns the competitions watchdog had first raised in April. Originally, Microsoft appealed the grounds on which the CMA blocked the merger to Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal, but to no avail. 

Eventually, the massive $69bn (£59bn) all cash acquisition proposal had to be restarted from scratch just a month ago. This was on the grounds that the deal failed to address the anti-competitiveness the merger would bring to the cloud gaming sector. 

The new deal pitched by Microsoft to the CMA is “a new and substantially different deal,” according to Colin Raftery, senior director of mergers and Phase 1 decision maker. “With additional protections to make sure that the deal is properly implemented, this will maintain the structure of the market.”

Under the new deal, Microsoft will not be able to purchase the cloud gaming rights owned by Activision. These will be sold to rival Ubisoft, which is based in France, instead before the deal is completed, for a period of 15 years. The idea is that Ubisoft will now act as the supplier of cloud gaming services the same way Activision would have if it remained an independent player. 

This Ubisoft deal also requires Microsoft to offer Activision games – such as the famed Call of Duty, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft – to other operating systems. 

The CMA now believes the restructured deal addresses most concerns, and says it has “limited residual concerns” that certain provisions in the sale of Activision’s cloud rights to Ubisoft could be unenforced.

In order to mitigate against these concerns, the CMA has offered certain remedies to ensure that the sale is enforced, which the watchdog says should be enough for the deal to gain approval.

The Statutory deadline for the CMA’s decision is 18 October this year. 

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After being approved in the US, EU and other significant markets, the UK remained the last step in pushing the merger through. Microsoft hopes the CMA can make a final decision on the new bid after consultation closes on the 6 October. Without the approval of the CMA, the deal cannot go through globally. 

“The CMA’s position has been consistent throughout – this merger could only go ahead if competition, innovation, and choice in cloud gaming was preserved. In response to our original prohibition, Microsoft has now substantially restructured the deal, taking the necessary steps to address our original concerns,” said Sarah Cardell, CEO of the CMA.

“It would have been far better, though, if Microsoft had put forward this restructure during our original investigation. This case illustrates the costs, uncertainty and delay that parties can incur if a credible and effective remedy option exists but is not put on the table at the right time.”