According to Korean media Digital Times reported that the South Korean Fair Trade Commission on May 30 review of the merger involving Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, that there is no real risk of limiting competition in the Korean game market, and therefore unconditionally approved the merger.
According to the review, the Korea Fair Trade Commission found that Activision Blizzard’s major games were not very popular in Korea and that the games developed and distributed by Microsoft and Activision Blizzard in Korea accounted for only 2% to 6% of the total market share. In addition, the acquisition did not limit the ability of its competitors due to the large number of popular domestic and international game developers.
In addition, Sony has a 70-80% share of domestic console games in Korea, and Nvidia has a 30-40% share of domestic cloud games in Korea, so there is no concern that the two companies will be limited by the merger.
As previously reported, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved in 37 countries/regions, including 27 EU countries and 10 other countries such as China, Japan and Brazil, covering more than 2 billion people. But the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) remain unconvinced and in the recent past, Microsoft has appealed the case to the UK CMA.
