At this point MS should just dump the deal, it's clearly never passing the UK. Spend that money on other stuff.

I'm still confident it will pass, especially if FTC and EC approve the deal.

FWIW. Phase 1 is done by the CMA Board, but Phase 2 is done by the CMA Panel where new people are appointed to look at the merger, none of which were involved in Phase 1 and all highly qualified and independent from the Board. If CMA blocks it, then Microsoft will likely take it to the Competition Appeal Tribunal who can slap it back to CMA to have another look.

CMA doesn't have a legit argument to block this deal, I'd be shocked if UK allows them to but then again, UK is a bit of a mess right now and it doesn't seem like anything works properly in this country right now, Lol. I do wonder if CMA is just throwing its weight around now that UK has left the EU as they now have more power to overlook mergers without EC involved.

Microsoft isn't dropping a $69bn deal unless multiple countries sue to block it Imo.

The only things that would suck about that is Activision netting a money guarantee if it doesn't go through and Kotick getting to hang around a bit longer.

Otherwise, I wouldn't mind it.  Get serious about acquiring some smaller fish.

The entire CMA thing is laughable really it reads like a Sony PR spin doctor gave them a document and they just took it as facts and backed themselves into a corner. A second independent panel should debunk the Sony must remain market leader at all costs approach they had in phase 1 and actually put consumers and competition back on the table.

It will pass I'm sure. Either MS will grease some CMA palms (which I'm sure Disney did to get their Fox acquisition past the CMA if the CMA is this much of a stickler) or Xbox will agree to the concessions Sony asked for (CoD remains on PS consoles for life, no exclusive CoD content on Xbox, graphics/framerate parity on both Xbox and PS).

The deal will pass :) There is nothing "clear" about it not passing; quite the opposite. Those phase 2 are just plain normal and people are just overeacting to it.

At the end, the worse that can happen is Microsoft making concessions and that's about it. 

Think it is my most played game on Xbox now.  Without an announced Gears game the future list of games look so boring =p

Holy shit that's a lot of playtime lol

Not even top 10% of his friends haha

Top 5 is + 250days but include streamers like sasxsh4dowz/JackieQuacky who are Gears streamers =p.