EU Antitrust Chief Supports Microsoft's Xbox-Activision Deal Despite UK CMA Block

Microsoft has officially appealed against the UK Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) block of its Activision Blizzard takeover in April, with the formal process taking place earlier this week. The European Commission ended up approving the acquisition a few weeks later, and in a recent speech by European Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager, it was explained in depth why the Commission ended up disagreeing with the CMA about whether to approve the acquisition or not. The European Commission and UK CMA were aligned in many of these views, but the part where they disagreed was in the cloud gaming sector, where the EU decided Microsoft's remedies were sufficient.