By Chris Skeldon 
The nearly €60 billion agreement that will allow Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard is about to make a change: transferring the rights to games in the cloud to Ubisoft.
This was in response to objections from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA – UK competition and market regulator) in relation to the original deal, in which Activision Blizzard’s entire catalog had been purchased by Microsoft.
Thus, the batch of streaming games from the publisher responsible, among others, for Call of Duty (featured image), is passing to Ubisoft – however, there is still no guarantee that CMA will greenlight this merger. At the moment, a new investigation has been opened, which will only be completed on October 18th.
“To address concerns about the impact of the acquisition of cloud game streaming that have been raised by the CMA, we are restructuring the transaction to obtain a more restricted set of rights,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith.
According to the same order, this restructuring “includes an agreement, effective from the completion of the merger, that transfers cloud streaming rights for all current and new Activision Blizzard computer and console games, released in the next fifteen years, to Ubisoft.” Brad Smith said that the rights would be transferred to Ubisoft in a “permanent” manner.
Among other implications, this new deal between Microsoft and Ubisoft means that Activision Blizzard games cannot be played exclusively on Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Details of this agreementIt can be known on the CMA website.