Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard just isn’t but a achieved deal, and one hurdle it has to clear is an antitrust investigation. It is now been reported that the U.S. Federal Commerce Fee, relatively than the Justice Division, will deal with the investigation (thanks, Bloomberg). The Microsoft acquisition can be the most important within the firm’s historical past.
The FTC has below the Biden administration promised to toughen-up on its policing of such offers, and final month issued a joint assertion with the Justice Division noting concern on the elevated focus of industries alongside a rise in merger filings in 2020/2021. Shortly afterwards it voted to sue to dam arms producer Lockheed Martin’s $4.4 billion buy of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings over antitrust considerations.
FTC Chair Lina Khan has advocated for a extra aggressive strategy to tech firms, which she has mentioned are ready to make use of their dominance in a single sector to take over others. The FTC has most notably been concerned just lately in Nvidia’s ill-fated attempt to acquire Arm. Whether or not that results in something right here stays to be seen.
Wealthy is a video games journalist with 15 years’ expertise, starting his profession on Edge journal earlier than working for a variety of retailers, together with Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for 3 years earlier than becoming a member of PC Gamer. He’s the creator of a Temporary Historical past of Video Video games, a full historical past of the medium, which the Midwest E-book Evaluate described as “[a] must-read for severe minded recreation historians and curious online game connoisseurs alike.”
