Microsoft adjusts Activision deal |
In a bid to get approval from U.K. regulators, Microsoft restructured its deal to buy game developer Activision Blizzard to give cloud gaming rights to the company Ubisoft. |
The restructuring, announced Tuesday, will give video game developer Ubisoft the ability to distribute games through cloud streaming. Ubisoft will “compensate Microsoft” for the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard’s games through a “one-off payment” and “market-based whole pricing mechanism,” Microsoft’s vice chairman and president Brad Smith said in a blog post. In doing so, Microsoft aims to gain approval of the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which raised concerns about how the acquisition would impact cloud game streaming. “Under the restructured transaction, Microsoft will not be in a position either to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on its cloud streaming service — Xbox Cloud Gaming — or to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games for rival services,” Smith wrote. The CMA said it opened a new investigation into the restructured deal Tuesday. The new probe will be carried out in line with CMA’s “usual Phase 1 process” and the statutory deadline for a decision is Oct. 18, the British regulator said. “This is not a green light,” Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA said in a statement. Read more in a full report at TheHill.com. |
Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, I’m Rebecca Klar — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. |
|
|
How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future: |
|
|
Billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has shared plans to strip headlines and other text from posts that display a news article’s lead image. The change, first reported Monday by Fortune, would mean that users — from individuals to publishers — would have to manually add their own text to posts and links that they share. Otherwise, the post will only display an image with … |
| |
|
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that a web-based version of the text-based platform Threads will be launching soon as it attempts to establish itself as a direct rival to Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter. In a Threads post Tuesday morning, Zuckerberg said that a web-based version of the app will be available over the next few days. This will allow users to access the platform online, much like how users are … |
| |
|
A new study linked screen time among children at age 1 with delays in certain developmental domains at ages 2 and 4. In a study published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers sought to demonstrate a link between the “doses” of screen time that infants consumed at age 1 and their scores in five developmental domains at ages 2 and 4: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal and … |
| |
|
News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics: |
|
|
TikTok to show ads on search results |
TikTok will start allowing advertisers to choose to show their ad content along organic search results, Mashable reported. |
|
|
Microsoft’s programming language Python will be available for Excel users, The Verge reported. |
|
|
Interested in exploring a new career? Visit The Hill Jobs Board to discover millions of roles worldwide, including: Deputy Director of Government Relations — Bread for the World, Washington, D.C. Apply Senior Director, GRC Specialist | Technology — FTI Consulting, Inc., Washington, D.C. Apply Supervisory Human Resources Specialist (Human Resource Development) — US Internal Revenue Service, Washington, D.C. Apply Product Engineering and Delivery Manager — Navy Federal Credit Union, Vienna, Va. Apply Click here to get your job mentioned |
|
|
Branch out with other reads on The Hill: |
|
|
IBM is selling The Weather Company assets to private equity firm Francisco Partners |
NEW YORK (AP) — IBM is selling assets of The Weather Company — including Weather.com and The Weather Channel mobile app — to private equity firm Francisco Partners. The two companies announced the deal Tuesday that also includes The Weather Company’s forecasting science and technology platform and … |
An ambitious but failed attempt by Russia to return to the moon after nearly half a century has exposed the massive challenges faced by Moscow’s once-proud space program. The destruction of the robotic Luna-25 probe, which crashed onto the surface of the moon over the weekend, reflects the … |
|
|
Two key stories on The Hill right now: |
|
|
Opinions related to tech submitted to The Hill: |
|
|
You’re all caught up. See you tomorrow! |
|
|
| 
