Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been reshuffled. The latest news is that the revised acquisition plan is expected to avoid a new investigation by the European Union. That could mean a wider path ahead for the biggest merger ever in the gaming industry.

The European Commission has concluded that amendments to Microsoft's bid, which it is seeking support from Britain's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), do not need to go through the EU approval process because further approval would only delay the stop-start deal further, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The deal had looked like it would eventually fall apart after objections from regulators in the UK and US.
As early as January last year, Microsoft announced plans to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion in a deal that, if ultimately successful, would be Microsoft's largest acquisition in history. Since then, however, the tech giant has been in a tug of war with regulators in various countries, who are concerned that the acquisition could be detrimental to the development of the gaming market.
The European Commission approved the deal early; In July, a US judge ruled that Microsoft could complete the deal, meaning the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) failed to block action.
That leaves the UK CMA as the only hurdle. The UK's CMA blocked the deal in April, citing concerns about fair competition in the cloud gaming market, but Microsoft has been given a second chance to revise parts of the deal to allay the CMA's concerns.
Final obstruction
According to earlier reports, in order to break through the British CMA this "final obstacle", Microsoft submitted a new restructuring deal, decided to sell Activision Blizzard's existing games, as well as the cloud streaming rights of new games released in the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment in France.
In a statement, the CMA wrote that the revised deal is significantly different from the previous deal and largely addresses most of the concerns, but the CMA still has some concerns that certain terms of the sale of cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft could be circumvented, terminated or not enforced.
The CMA has opened a consultation on Microsoft's proposed remedies until October 6. If there are no new obstacles, the deal is expected to be formally approved as early as next week.
The European Commission did not respond on Wednesday, reiterating an earlier statement that it was "closely following developments in the UK and assessing their potential implications for the EU case".
While the European hurdles are close to being overcome, Microsoft still faces legal problems in the United States. According to an order issued by the Federal Trade Commission in September, the agency will move forward with the process after suspending its internal review of the acquisition over the summer.
The move means that even if the acquisition has already been approved in the United States, the FTC can technically continue to challenge it, but it is unlikely to block the completion of the deal before October 18, Microsoft's current deadline.