Japan has become the latest country to approve of Microsoft’s massive 68.7 billion deal. The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) released a statement confirming its decision, concluding that the deal is “…unlikely to result in substantially restraining competition in any particular fields of trade,” according to Video Games Chronicle (VGC). Japan is the fifth country to approve of the acquisition following Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Chile and Serbia.
The JFTC found that the deal fell under “…the safe harbor criteria for vertical business combinations” and thus didn’t violate any of its anti-competition legislature. Additionally, the JFTC concluded that the deal wouldn’t result in supply constraints on other platforms, considering that there are already competing businesses and games sold in a digital format.
The JFTC’s approval is another victory for Microsoft as it continues to fight for the deal’s approval. In recent months the tech giant has increased its efforts in getting the deal approved by offering remedies to the deal’s many detractors inclucing the UK’s Competition Markets Authority (CMA), the US’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and its rival Sony.
That said, last week the CMA updated its provisional findings regarding the deal, concluding that it no longer believed that the deal would threaten industry competition. The regulator would still be investigation the deal’s effects on the cloud gaming market however, its another step towards the deal’s approval. The UK regulator’s final ruling on the Activision Blizzard deal is due by April 26.
Until then, Microsoft will likely continue to offer remedies. Microsoft has recently settled 10-year agreements with third-party cloud gaming platforms, NVIDIA, and even Nintendo for Activision Blizzard titles to exist on their platforms in that time range.