Phil Spencer is going to court! The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has refused to approve the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard and is filing a lawsuit to block it

On December 7, representatives of Microsoft Corporation met with members of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It seemed that the team of Phil Spencer would be able to bring arguments and convince the American regulators that the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard is fully legal and will not harm the video game industry.

However, today it became known that the FTC has rendered a verdict not in favor of the American corporation!

Here's What We Know

The Washington Post reports that the FTC refused to approve the merger of two giants of the gaming market, and moreover, filed a lawsuit in order to block the deal.

The FTC doesn't agree with Microsoft's arguments and, on the contrary, sees a danger that the Redmond giant will stifle competition and become a monopolist in the video game segment.

As an example, the regulators considered the deal between Microsoft and Bethesda, as a result of which all new games of this publisher became console exclusives Xbox and not available on PlayStation, although previously there were no statements about exclusivity, for example, Starfield and Redfall.

Holly Vedova, head of the U.S. FTC's competition bureau, said:

Microsoft has already shown by its actions that it can deny games to its competitors. We have decided to try to prevent Microsoft from gaining control of a leading independent games company and using it to hurt competitors in dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.

Microsoft's fight to acquire Activision Blizzard has moved to a different level, because after the FTC's actions, the deal is very likely to fail.