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FTC investigating Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal

FTC investigating Microsoft Activision Blizzard deal

The United States' Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is going to be looking into Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

That's according to Bloomberg News, which reports that the anti-trust review of the deal is to be examined by the FTC rather than the Justice Department. Bloomberg notes that these reviews can be handled by either government body, but that the former is often stricter in how it sees these cases than the latter.

The FTC recently sued Nvidia to block its $40 billion acquisition of UK chip firm Arm; this is likely a factor in reports that the deal is going to fall through

The deal is the largest in the games industry's history, weighing in at $68.7 billion. Microsoft previously acquired Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media for a huge $7.5 billion.

Industry consolidation isn't limited to Microsoft, either. Sony yesterday announced it was buying Destiny maker Bungie for $3.6 billion.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.