A soap opera that resulted in Activision Blizzard’s purchase of King by Microsoft is, barring a last-minute surprise (and given its development so far, something we still can’t rule out), very close to completion, with the result expected by both companies all this time. Recall that when the operation was announced at the beginning of last year, both companies planned to complete it between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, no doubt they did not imagine everything that was coming.

In the documents that defined the terms of the operation a period of 18 months was set, which at first seemed like more than enough time, but the opposition to it from both the US FTC and the UK CMA became two red lights that also hit two particularly relevant markets. As a result, the two companies agreed to extend the original deadline and offered three months, which set the deadline for October 18, a move that was made when the US regulator lost a court case in which it tried to impose a preventive block and almost simultaneously the British opened negotiations for a way out.

So with the CMA negotiating and the FTC suspending its internal litigation, All that remained was to start counting the days until all the fringes were polished. and Microsoft finally took over Activision Blizzard. The CMA’s approval, tentative but with some indication that it is final, came at the end of September, and as for the FTC, we learned just a week ago that it had decided to continue swimming against the tide by reactivating its internal examination.

However, this does not seem to have deterred the parties, especially those from Redmond, so as we can read in The Verge, Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard will be completed next Friday, October 13, just a week and five days before the new deadline set in July. And while they could obviously negotiate a new expansion, Activision Blizzard could also demand that Microsoft pay $4 billion in compensation, something Microsoft clearly wants to avoid at all costs.

And what happens next with the FTC lawsuit? This is one of the main doubts because if the result is that the operation should be blocked, This controller may try to cancel it or, otherwise, to apply the measures deemed necessary to prevent their possible effects on competition in the various sectors of the gaming industry.