UK blocks Microsoft Activision Bid: Microsoft wanted to buy a big company called Activision, but a group called the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK said no. They were worried that if Microsoft bought Activision, it would make it harder for other companies to make new and exciting games for people to play online. The CMA looked at the deal carefully and decided that Microsoft’s plan to fix the problem wasn’t good enough. So, they said no to the deal.
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Cloud Gaming Concerns
More and more people in the UK are playing video games using the internet. Microsoft is a big company that offers cloud gaming services, which means people can play games without needing to buy a console or game disc. They want to buy another company called Activision, which makes popular games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. This would make Microsoft even stronger in the market and give them more control over the games people can play. The government is checking to make sure this is okay for competition.
Cloud gaming lets UK gamers play video games without having to buy expensive consoles or computers. It gives them more options and freedom to choose how they want to play. Microsoft is becoming a big player in this market, but it’s important to let other companies be creative so that we can keep making new and exciting ways to play games.
The remedy
Microsoft made a plan to fix some problems, and people checked it carefully. The plan said that Microsoft has to let people play certain games on different devices for ten years. This is called a “behavioural” plan because it tells Microsoft to act in a certain way, even if it doesn’t help them make money.
The government is making rules for companies that make games that can be played on the internet. These rules will be enforced by a group called the CMA. Microsoft suggested some ideas for these rules, but they didn’t cover everything and might not let other companies compete in fair ways.
This solution only helps certain games made by Activision, and you can only play them on certain streaming services that you buy from certain online stores. Because things change a lot in ten years, Microsoft and the streaming services might not agree about how things should work. To make sure everything is fair, someone would need to watch over it.
The government agency that makes sure companies are playing fair looked at whether it was a good idea for one big company to join with another big company, and decided it would hurt competition in the UK. They thought about how this could make things more expensive and harder for people who like to play video games. They decided it would be better to let the companies compete on their own, without joining together.
A group of experts are looking into a big company called Microsoft and how they want to team up with another company to make a new way to play video games called cloud gaming. This could be really cool because people wouldn’t need to buy expensive video game machines to play, but it’s important to make sure that other companies have a fair chance to compete too.
Microsoft is already really good at cloud gaming, and if they team up with this other company, it might make it harder for other companies to make new and exciting ways to play video games.
Microsoft tried to fix the problems we had with them, but their ideas didn’t work. We need competition in cloud gaming so that people can come up with new ideas and choices. We should let the competition keep doing what it’s doing. For more detail click the link.
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