Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been approved by the European Union.

The European Union said that Microsoft has completely solved the problem of competition in the cloud game market. Microsoft has offered European consumers a 10-year free license to transmit all current and future animated games through cloud services.

The European Commission also said the deal would not hurt the console market because Microsoft had no incentive to reject Activision games from competitors such as Sony PlayStation without sacrificing profits. In the European Union, PlayStation has a much larger market share than Microsoft Xbox. The authorities also pointed out that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have a relatively small market share in mobile games, while mobile games account for about half of the overall video game market in the European Union.

This shows that global regulators are divided over the regulation of big acquisitions by the giants.

European regulators seem to be more tolerant of the technology industry than the US, and the approval is rare. For years, European antitrust regulators have been actively pursuing large technology companies such as Google, imposing billions of dollars in fines and ordering changes to some business practices.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), led by Lina Khan, has taken a tougher stance. Lena made the challenge of mergers and acquisitions a central part of her plan to control the tech giants.

FTC has sued Microsoft to block the deal and is scheduled to hold a hearing in August. FTC said the deal would hurt consumers and attract players from competitors.

A few weeks ago, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) rejected the agreement, saying it would hinder competition in the local gaming market. Microsoft said it would appeal the ruling.

With regard to today's EU approval, CMA said it acknowledged and respected the right of the European Commission to hold different views on the deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard, but they insisted on their decision.

The EU approval will not have any direct legal impact on the process, and antitrust lawyers say it is highly unlikely that Microsoft will overturn the British decision.

Still, the EU approval shows that Microsoft has cleared one of the three regulatory hurdles facing the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

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Responsible editor: Liu Liangliang