EU approves Microsoft-Activision deal after UK watchdog originally blocked it

The Yahoo Finance Live team discusses the approval of the Microsoft-Activision deal by E.U. regulators months after the U.K. watchdog blocked the deal, and what to expect from the United State's decision.

Video transcript

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- It's official. Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition has been approved by EU regulators. The green light is a big win for the company, coming just weeks after UK watchdogs blocked the deal. Shares of Activision and Microsoft, they are both rising on the news. The European Commission saying commitments made by Microsoft in the cloud gaming sphere staved off antitrust concerns.

That said, we don't know what US regulators are going to say. So we got the UK saying no. We got the EU saying yes. Usually, the US follows their lead, but their leads are different. So I don't know what's going to happen now.

- Right. And for Microsoft, for Activision Blizzard, what they have had to continuously prove is that there will not be a material kind of detriments that is incurred by consumers because of the very popular titles that Activision Blizzard has. If those were to be brought in to Microsoft, that already has its own dominance in the console category, in cloud as well, and how it's kind of weaving those together. And then now you have the titles that would be produced by Activision Blizzard coming all under the same roof.

- Yeah. So it looks like the UK watchdog did not find Microsoft's reassurances credible. The EU did.

- Mhm.

- TBD what happens here in the US and whether the deal gets done.