It has been a long time coming, but Microsoft’s near-two year attempt to buy gaming giant Activision is finally happening, after the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) accepted a restructured proposal that addresses the CMA’s concerns about Microsoft dominating the cloud gaming market.

Microsoft announced its plans to buy Activision in a gargantuan $68.7 billion deal way back in January, 2022.

The move would essentially make Microsoft the third-largest gaming company globally by revenue (behind Tencent and Sony), giving it control over mega-franchises such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty.

In April, the CMA concluded that the deal would “substantially weaken competition” and would create “…the most powerful operator” in the cloud gaming market.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft reached various deals to keep Activision games on rival platforms including Nintendo, Sony, and Steam for a 10-year period.

But the CMA asserted that Microsoft’s proposals simply couldn’t replace the current “competitive dynamism.”

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