Decision comes four months after the Federal Trade Commission also moved to stop the $69 billion deal.
British regulators have blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard over worries that the move would stifle competition in the cloud gaming market.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority said in its final report Wednesday that “the only effective remedy” to the significant loss of competition that the deal would result in “is to prohibit the Merger.”
“Gaming is the UK’s largest entertainment sector,” Martin Coleman, the authority’s chairman said in a statement. “Cloud gaming is growing fast with the potential to change gaming by altering the way games are played, freeing people from the need to rely on expensive consoles and gaming PCs and giving them more choice over how and where they play games. This means that it is vital that we protect competition in this emerging and exciting market.”
The all-cash deal was set to be the biggest in the history of the tech industry.
