The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States is preparing an order to block the purchase agreement of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard before the Administrative Court of the country.
The acquisition of the video game developer was announced in January last year, but after Sony refused, suggesting that this would lead to a monopoly, several international organizations have studied the case to find out what could happen if they finally this purchase occurs.
In December 2022, the FTC filed a lawsuit to block the developer’s purchase of titles like Call of Duty for around $61 billion. This body then argued that this purchase “would allow Microsoft to suppress competitors for its Xbox game consoles and its rapidly growing cloud gaming and subscription content business.”
The director of the FTC’s Office of Competition, Holly Vedova, also said that Microsoft had already demonstrated “that it can withhold content from its gaming rivals” and suggested that it would continue to do so if it were to buy the developer.
“We seek to prevent Microsoft from gaining control of a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple fast-growing and dynamic gaming markets”, Vedova insisted.
Now, the FTC is asking US courts to block the Xbox maker from acquiring Activision Blizzard with a temporary restraining order (TRO), as evidenced by a document seen by The Verge.
K. Tovar
Source: The Verge
(Reference image source: Alexander Cifuentes, Unsplash)
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