September 30, 2023

New Zealand is the newest nation to approve Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. A complete of 41 international locations have now authorised Microsoft’s $68 billion deal internationally, although the corporate continues to be dealing with some resistance within the UK.

Within the resolution from the nation’s Commerce Fee revealed earlier in the present day, Fee Chair Dr. John Small defined that the acquisition was unlikely to hurt competitors within the nation. “Whereas Activision video games, specifically Name of Obligation, are common with New Zealand avid gamers, our enquiries didn’t discover that they’re prone to be ‘should have’ with the intention to compete with Microsoft in New Zealand,” Small mentioned.

Home windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Join our new free e-newsletter to get three time-saving suggestions every Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott’s Home windows 11 and Home windows 10 Area Guides (usually $9.99) as a particular welcome reward!

*” signifies required fields

Commenting on this new approval, Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft posted that Microsoft stays decided to shut the deal as quickly as potential. “We’ll proceed to work to resolve excellent issues and convey this deal to an in depth,” the exec mentioned.

Because of ongoing discussions with the UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA), Microsoft needed to prolong its deadline to shut the deal to October 18. The CMA, nonetheless, is predicted to share its ultimate resolution by August 29, although its discover of extension mentioned that “the Inquiry Group goals to discharge its responsibility as quickly as potential and upfront of this date.”