There's 70% chance that the Microsoft Activision deal will be approved by the FTC, the former chairman has predicted.
Following the news that the Federal Trade Commission in the US was likely to file an antitrust lawsuit to stop the Microsoft-Activision deal, a new article by The New York Post has instead indicated that the deal is more likely to go ahead than was previously thought. According to the FTC's former chairman William Kovacic, the almost $70 million deal has a 70% chance of being accepted, due to the current "rift" at the FTC.
The New York Post story reveals that the Microsoft Activision deal has caused a division with the current chair Lina Khan supposedly pushing to block the deal from going ahead. Half of the people in the four-member panel are understood to have shown support for Microsoft, including Republican commissioner Christine Wilson and at least one of the panel's three Democratic commissioners.
- Despite "a rocky couple of years," analyst reckons Xbox's console war is "actually looking pretty bright" - "If you look at the PlayStation sales chart, you see a lot of Microsoft on there"
- With Indiana Jones and Forza Horizon 5 ports, Phil Spencer isn't "trying to move" Nintendo Switch and PS5 players "over to Xbox anymore"
Kovacic has said to The New York Post that if Microsoft was to propose "a package of solutions" for all of the FTC's concerns, "the folks at the FTC are being very unreasonable if they don't take it." It's likely that Microsoft and Activision will do everything they can to see this deal through, especially considering that just recently an Activision Blizzard exec said they "won't hesitate to fight" any challenges to Microsoft's acquisition.
Despite all of this, Microsoft appears to still be fairly confident about its Activision deal. A few months prior to this, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the company still feels "very, very confident" about the deal being approved, despite the pushback from not only the FTC but also the UK's Competition and Markets Authority. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also feels similarly, recently stating that he's confident the acquisition will close by June 2023.
On the other side, Sony is burning every bridge it can to counter Microsoft's Activision deal.
