Microsoft's restructured acquisition of Activision Blizzard "opens the door" to the deal being cleared, Britain's antitrust regulator said on Friday.
Microsoft announced the biggest gaming deal in history in early 2022, but the $69 billion acquisition was blocked in April by Britain's competition regulator, which was concerned the U.S. computing giant would gain too much control of the nascent cloud gaming market.
In August the "Call of Duty" maker agreed to sell its streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment.
The sale of Activision's cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft "substantially addresses previous concerns," the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said in a statement.
"While the CMA has identified limited residual concerns with the new deal, Microsoft has put forward remedies which the CMA has provisionally concluded should address these issues," the regulator said.
There are "residual concerns" that certain provisions in the sale of Activision's cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft could be circumvented, terminated or not enforced, it said.
Microsoft has offered remedies to ensure that the terms of the sale are enforceable by the regulator.
The CMA is now consulting on the remedies before making a final decision.
(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; editing by Varun H K and Jason Neely)
