Then again, a good portion of salty twitter tears on the side will make today's gaming more enjoyable.

Goes to show, never trust these xbox centric gaming journalists... Biggest L of the week.

Tbh I think this isn't over yet and if I was into gambling I'd still put my money on this deal eventually happening. Though UK seems a bit strange.

Unless they pull out of the UK, I don't see how this can be approved. I'm ignorant to this mind you. It's just going to go back to the CMA who will just block it. :/

They lost their mojo after 1776.

So, Xbox's CoD player base will continue to decline as well, an essential output for Cloud but it's offered on multiple Cloud services under Microsoft but they'll continue to allow Sony who dominates Xbox to make exclusives deals with CoD which do influence purchasing habits, Lol.

Not that regulators ever cared but I also feel bad for the workers at Activision-Blizzard-King as well...The company will continue to slowly crumble under that POS Bobby Kotick.

Can't wait for Luna to close and that to be Microsoft's fault too, Amazon can't even be bothered to put their own titles on it, Lol.

Since we agree that moneyhats are totally pro-competitive (apparently) then it's time for Microsoft to get aggressive again and start doing major moneyhats for a period of years, I dislike them and I've long spoken out about them but what can you do at this point. Owning an IP is totally bad but moneyhatting it for years is okay.

It'd also be hilarious if Microsoft signed an exclusive xCloud contract with ABK after this. That would be okay, but owning them wouldn't. Regulators would have no way to stop it, Lol. But nah, kill off xCloud, it's useless, it's a loss maker, it's a tiny market, it's an uncertain market and it's preventing growth.

Yeah when this deal fails, I wonder what their game plan will be. At least now, we can also hopefully get a PS showcase. Very curious to see what they have planned.

UK been f*cking strange for over 10 years now, Lol.

Literally everything is failing in this country.

It's definitely not over yet, Microsoft has already said they're appealing to CAT, and if we were guided by logic and facts, I would also put money on it with you, but the fact is that CAT often sides with CMA and has to find that CMA has acted "irrational" to side against them and even if they do side against CMA, they simply tell CMA to make another decision, the same CMA acting irrationally, which can be another block. I don't actually know how many appeals a company is allowed either, I don't imagine Microsoft can just keep appealing to CAT over and over until they get the decision that they want.

What I have read though, is that CMA appeals are a lot shorter than EC ones (EC appeals can sometimes take years), and due to the size of the deal, Microsoft can expedite the appeal process, I'd be surprised if this deal is over this year now though, Microsoft will have to re-negotiate with Activision-Blizzard on the closure date and now they might as well wait for the FTC process to play out.

"ABK is critical to Cloud success"

*No ABK titles currently available on Cloud services*

"Microsoft may remove them later!"

*Baseless speculation and ignoring the benefits of a 10 year leg-up to companies*

Even if it gets appealed, it's just going to go right back to the CMA to block.