On Microsoft getting the OK to buy activism. Blizzard
. This is ahead of a July 18th deadline.
Bloomberg low is joining us now from Sun Valley.
I got activism up over 4.5% Microsoft down slightly.
And are you surprised by this? Were you expecting
it? What are your thoughts? You know,
our colleague Malatya was telling us in technology 24 hours
ago that if you read the body language and you
listen to the line of question from the judge to
the FC and the ftc's response that it indicated she
was leaning towards going in Microsoft's favor. That is
what's happened. This was a request for an injunction
for a temporary halt for Activision and Microsoft's deal to
be able to proceed. Remember there is a July
18th deadline as per the merger agreement to get this
deal closed. What is interesting is that the UK
is still in play where the CMA has moved to
block the deal that is being appealed in so far
as that Microsoft and Activision are only allowed to have
the process reviewed the procedural impropriety rule. That's what's
in place. So there are still lots of questions
do they extend the deadline to get the UK to
work? The FTC has issued a statement saying they're
disappointed in the outcome given the clear threat the merger
poses to open competition in cloud gaming and subscription services
and consoles. Remember the origin of this deal is
all about mobile gaming. Activision owns. King.
King is the maker of candy crush. Mobile games
are not an area where Microsoft has a big presence
. So this is just one step. It's come
earlier in the week than perhaps we expected. And
what's so interesting, Alex and Guy Bobby Kotik,
the CEO of Activision due to be here in Sun
Valley this week. I'm due to speak with him
and I believe that a number of Microsoft executives are
due to attend Sun Valley as well. Ed what
is the tone gonna be? How does this change
the tone at the meeting you're going to be at
? What is the ripple effect of this into other
deals that potentially could get done into other areas of
consolidation? How, how sort of totemic was this
deal in particular and the restrictions that were being applied
to it to, to the rest of the industry
? It's a blow for the FTC and Lena K
and the FTC initiatives at Bloomberg News. We've described
this deal as transformative for the video games industry because
it would give Microsoft that mobile gaming component, but
it would also put into focus a hot property call
of duty. One of the compromises that Microsoft and
Activision put forward was to make Call of Duty available
in rival platforms, namely Sony's playstation and on Nintendo
, Nintendo were agreeable to that solution and Sony wasn't
, I guess that Bobby co and the Microsoft executives
will be more buoyant. The$69 billion deal is
the biggest video games deal, but it's also pretty
much the biggest technology piece of M and A makes
it pretty exciting here. At least we have something
to talk about.