European Commission spokeswoman Ariana Podesta said in a statement to the edge.
A further notification to the EU could signal another revision of the deal that regulators at the European Commission agreed to earlier this year. While the EU has concerns about cloud gaming just as much as the EU has secured solutions as part of that approval, giving EU consumers a free license to stream via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice” all current and future Activision Blizzard PC games that They have a license for it. Cloud service providers will also be given a free license to broadcast these games in the EU markets.
At the time of approval, Microsoft also committed to Tweet from Microsoft President Brad Smith, that these licenses “will apply globally” and are “automatically applied to competing cloud gaming services”. While Microsoft says the restructured deal will not affect Microsoft’s obligations to the European Commission, Ubisoft will now control licensing outside of EU markets.
In effect, this means that the cloud gaming service can start in the European Union with a free license, but now it will need Ubisoft to give it a license if it wants to operate in the United States, for example. Microsoft had planned to apply these licenses freely globally, but now they are ceding the rights to cloud gaming by Activision Blizzard to Ubisoft outside the EU.
The restructured deal means that if Microsoft closes this proposed acquisition, it will also need to acquire a license from Ubisoft for Activision Blizzard games on the Xbox Cloud Gaming service outside of the EU. It will not be able to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on Xbox Cloud Gaming, nor will it have exclusive control over the license terms of Activision Blizzard games on competing services.
UK regulators are already treating this as a new deal, with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opening a new agreement Achieving “Phase 1” In this restructured transaction. Microsoft will now need to wait and see if the European Commission also needs an update notice for the deal and more regulatory issues.
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