Nvidia GeForce Now came out in defense of Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard. This is the second major cloud gaming platform that publicly advocated for the deal in the aftermath's of the Competition and Markets Authority's decision to block the Activision Blizzard acquisition.
Cloud gaming service Boosteroid already spoke out against the CMA's opposition to Microsoft's Activision Blizzard buyout immediately after the British regulator announced its intentions to block the deal on April 26. Both Boosteroid and Nvidia GeForce Now previously signed 10-year partnerships with Microsoft intended to bring Xbox games to their platforms should the Activision Blizzard deal go through.
Nvidia's cloud gaming service has now joined its rival in publicly defending Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition. It recently took to Twitter to argue that it stands to benefit from Microsoft absorbing the Call of Duty maker, stating that the deal—combined with its previously announced Xbox partnership—will help it offer "an even deeper" game library to its subscribers. Moreover, the company posited that this applies to all cloud gaming providers that partnered with Xbox. Apart from Nvidia GeForce Now and Boosteroid, Microsoft recently signed similar decade-long publishing deals with Ubitus and Nware.
In the early days of regulatory scrutiny over Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition, cloud gaming seemed like an afterthought. However, the CMA has now made it the sole basis for rejecting the consolidation, arguing that buying the Call of Duty maker would provide Microsoft with too much power in this still-developing market.
Microsoft's consolidation proposal has so far been cleared in seven countries around the globe. The latest regulatory approval for the Activision Blizzard acquisition arrived mere hours ago, with Ukraine becoming the first country the greenlit the transaction following the CMA's pushback against the deal. The buyout has previously been approved in South Africa, Japan, Chile, Serbia, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia. The European Union, Australia, New Zealand, and China are all yet to give their verdicts on the transaction.
While Beijing's regulators are unlikely to be influenced by the opinions from their antitrust colleagues around the globe, Australia and New Zealand are both expected to issue their rulings only after the EU has done the same. Back in March, Microsoft offered compromise to the EU over the Activision Blizzard deal, prompting some industry watchers to speculate that Brussels won't mount meaningful opposition to the transaction. However, the company offered similar remedies to the CMA, who ended up withholding its approval, so it remains to be seen how the European Commission's investigation plays out. The latest provisional deadline that the EU attached to its probe of the deal is May 22.