The biggest acquisition in gaming history and one of the largest in the tech industry is in the books. Twenty months after the deal was announced, Microsoft has bought Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the largest acquisition in the company's history. CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer has asked Activision CEO Bobby Kotick to stay on until the end of 2023, at which point he'll be leaving the company. It's been a long road filled with plenty of twists and turns to get to this point.

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) initially blocked the deal in April, though it and the companies agreed to pause Microsoft's appeal to try and resolve the regulator's reservations over the merger's impact on the cloud gaming industry. An appeal tribunal approved a request to delay the proceedings. 

In an attempt to win over the UK regulator, Microsoft agreed to sell the cloud gaming rights for Activision Blizzard titles to Ubisoft. That means that not only should Activision Blizzard's games be on Xbox Game Pass, but they'll land on Ubisoft+ and any other game-streaming service Ubisoft decides to work with. Concerns about competition in the cloud gaming market was the CMA's reasoning for initially blocking Microsoft's takeover of Activision, but the watchdog said in September that the Ubisoft concession "opens the door to the deal being cleared." A few weeks later, the CMA has rubberstamped the merger.

Microsoft also signed 10-year agreements with Nintendo and several cloud-gaming companies to offer its titles on their platforms. Those moves led to the European Union giving the merger the green light. The bloc's competition officials reportedly didn't see anything in the amended merger agreement (with the Ubisoft plan factored in) that would prompt a fresh antitrust investigation. 

The Federal Trade Commission's attempts to stop the deal over competition concerns haven't panned out. The agency sued to block it in December and an evidentiary hearing in that case was slated to take place on August 2nd. The FTC tried to temporarily block the merger with a preliminary injunction ahead of its administrative trial, but a judge denied that effort. 

The FTC still plans to challenge the merger. If that effort is successful, Microsoft could be forced to divest some or all of Activision Blizzard.

But for now, the deal is done. It means, among other things, that Activision Blizzard titles will be available on cloud gaming platforms for the first time since the publisher pulled its titles from GeForce Now in early 2020. Its games will surely join Game Pass in the very near future, including on Xbox Cloud Gaming, and they'll pop up on Ubisoft+ and other platforms Ubisoft works with.

Those waiting for Activision Blizzard's two biggest games of 2023 to hit Game Pass will certainly need to remain patient, though. The publisher has said Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Diablo IV won't hit the service until next year.

Meanwhile, Blizzard games are already coming to Steam rather than being siloed on the Battle.net launcher. We'll probably see them appearing on Xbox's PC app too. For what it's worth, in court filings, Microsoft called Activision's strategy of releasing PC versions of Call of Duty titles exclusively on Battle.net in a bid to grow the platform a "resounding failure."

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One of the key reasons Microsoft gave for pursuing the deal was to accelerate its aim of becoming a major player in the mobile gaming market. With Activision Blizzard pulling in $1.9 billion in mobile revenue in the first six months of 2023 alone, it will achieve that goal practically overnight. 

King, which is behind the hugely successful Candy Crush franchise, generated more revenue ($1.49 billion) than Activision ($1.15 billion) in the first half of this year. Thanks largely to the massive success of Diablo IV, Blizzard brought in the most of the three units during that period with a hair over $1.5 billion. Still, King had 238 million monthly active users as of June 30th, just over twice as many as Activision and Blizzard combined. It recently emerged that Candy Crush Saga has generated over $20 billion in lifetime revenue.

Blizzard has also been making a push into mobile gaming with the likes of Diablo Immortal. Activision, meanwhile, has Call of Duty Mobile in its portfolio and Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is on the way. The company said in its most recent earnings report Call of Duty has around 90 million monthly players, "with over half of all engagement on the mobile platform."

As for exclusivity of future projects, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has promised to "do whatever it takes" to keep shipping Call of Duty games on PlayStation. After months of refusing to do so, Sony eventually signed a 10-year pact just before the initial merger deadline of July 18th to keep that particular franchise on PlayStation, conceding defeat in its efforts to halt the acquisition. However, Microsoft will likely opt to keep other Activision Blizzard games off of PlayStation platforms, as it has done with ZeniMax/Bethesda titles Redfall and Starfield, as well as MachineGames' upcoming Indiana Jones project.

Meanwhile, many observers hope that Microsoft will help stamp out the alleged toxic workplace culture at Activision Blizzard. Earlier this year, Activision Blizzard paid $35 million to settle SEC charges related to how it handled employees' workplace misconduct complaints.

In 2021, the California Civil Rights Department (formerly the Department of Fair Employment and Housing) sued the company and accused it of fostering a "frat boy" culture in which female employees were harassed and discriminated against. Activision Blizzard countersued the CRD in December. The case hasn't been resolved. In fact, the CRD's lawsuit (which, along with other events, sent Activision's stock tumbling) set the ball rolling on Microsoft's acquisition of the company in the first place.

The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has reached a settlement with Apple and Broadcom over Wi-Fi chips, ending a billion-dollar patent dispute that started in 2016, Reuters has reported. In a filing, Caltech said that it's dismissing the case with prejudice, meaning it can't be filed again.

The saga has taken several turns. Caltech initially alleged that millions of iPhones, iPads, Watches and other Apple devices with Broadcom chips infringed its Wi-Fi based patents. The institute initially won a $1.1 billion jury award, with Apple ordered to pay Caltech $837.8 million and Broadcom to pay an additional $270.2 million. 

However, Apple appealed, and a federal appeals court overturned the decision, calling the award "legally unsupportable." Specifically, the judge rejected Caltech's argument that it could have negotiated licenses with both Broadcom and Apple for the same chips.

The jury then ordered a new trial — though it also upheld the original jury's findings that Apple and Broadcom infringed two Caltech patents. That trial was supposed to take place this June, but was postponed indefinitely. The parties told the court last August that they had reached a "potential settlement," but didn't disclose any other information. 

The technology is vital to the 802.11n and 802.11ac WiFi standards, though its inventor said that the patents (related to data transmission tech), weren't originally designed for WiFi. Broadcom remains a major Apple supplier, having recently signed a $15 billion agreement to furnish chips for upcoming iPhones and other products. Caltech recently settled a similar lawsuit against Samsung, and still has Wi-Fi patent cases pending with Microsoft, Dell and HP. 

UK's antitrust regulator has given Microsoft the green light to buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion following a protracted back and forth. The regulator called Microsoft's concession to sell cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft a "gamechanger that will promote competition."

With the last major obstacle out of the way, the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) has now largely cleared the path for the companies to close the biggest merger in gaming history. That move was widely expected after the watchdog said in September that the company's revised merger agreement "substantially addresses previous concerns and opens the door to the deal being cleared."

In April, the CMA blocked the deal on the grounds of a belief that it would make Microsoft too dominant of a player in the cloud gaming space. However, as other dominoes that were preventing the deal from happening fell, the CMA gave Microsoft a second chance to resolve its concerns. The companies extended their merger agreement by three months to give them time to smooth things out with the CMA.

Microsoft later submitted a modified deal to the watchdog that will see it sell Activision Blizzard game streaming rights to Ubisoft if the merger goes through. Ubisoft would then handle cloud streaming rights in perpetuity for current titles and any others that Activision Blizzard releases over the following 15 years. Given that the CMA's misgivings over the original deal, Microsoft evidently hoped that the concession would be significant enough to resolve the regulator's concerns. Evidently, that's exactly what happened.

The CMA said last month that it had "residual concerns" about enforcement of Microsoft's revised proposal. However, it noted that "Microsoft gave undertakings that will ensure that the terms of the sale of Activision's rights to Ubisoft are enforceable by the CMA."

The regulator touted its role in forcing Microsoft to make concessions. "With the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights to Ubisoft, we’ve made sure Microsoft can’t have a stranglehold over this important and rapidly developing market," CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement. "As cloud gaming grows, this intervention will ensure people get more competitive prices, better services and more choice. We are the only competition agency globally to have delivered this outcome."

There were suggestions that European Union antitrust regulators might review the amended deal. EU officials approved the acquisition in May after Microsoft made some cloud gaming concessions. According to Bloomberg, the bloc's competition regulators didn't see cause for concern with the amended deal that would prompt another investigation.

After a US court rejected the Federal Trade Commission's attempt to temporarily block the deal pending an administrative trial, the CMA and both companies in question asked a tribunal to delay Microsoft's appeal against the UK regulator's initial decision. The tribunal agreed and, after reviewing the updated proposal from Microsoft, the CMA has rubberstamped the merger. It now seems like just a matter of time until this is a done deal and one of the biggest tech mergers in memory is in the books.

There is one significant potential hurdle remaining, however. The FTC is moving forward with its attempt to challenge the deal. That effort won't stop Microsoft from closing the acquisition, but there's a chance that the FTC could force the company to divest some or all of Activision Blizzard.

Threads is now rolling out a pair of useful updates as Meta tries to give the app some more momentum. One of the new features is an edit button, which will help folks avoid having to repost something when they want to correct a mistake.

X (formerly Twitter) took 16 years to add an edit button, and then it placed it behind the Twitter Blue/X Premium paywall. Threads took just over three months to introduce a similar option, which is free to all users and will be available on mobile and the web.

After you post something on Threads, you'll have five minutes to edit it, as 9to5Google points out. That's a reasonable enough timeframe (X users have up to an hour to tweak their tweets). On the downside, Threads doesn't show the edit history for a post. That's bad for transparency, especially if someone significantly changes the substance of a post that gains traction very quickly.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also noted that Threads is adding the option to post voice clips. That's another welcome update, especially for those who prefer speaking to typing (or using voice-to-text features). Meanwhile, it appears that Threads is working on a trending topics feature.

Sony will soon release its Access controller, which it designed to help people with disabilities play PS5 games with greater ease. The $90 peripheral comes with a variety of customization options in the box, and there are four 3.5mm ports that people can use to connect third-party accessories to the controller.

Logitech has teamed up with Sony to release an Adaptive Gaming Kit for the controller. It includes eight buttons and triggers you can plug into the peripheral. These include two small and two large buttons with mechanical switches, two light-touch buttons and two variable trigger controls. These are all configurable on the console to best meet a player's needs. The kit includes labels with PS5 symbols that you can attach to the buttons and triggers, along with mats and velcro ties to keep everything in place.

The Adaptive Gaming Kit, which will be available in January, costs $80. Logitech previously released a version for the Xbox Adaptive Controller. Since both console platforms' accessibility controllers use industry-standard 3.5mm connectors, the Xbox variant of Logitech's kit should be compatible with the Access controller. Still, perhaps you'd prefer stickers with PlayStation symbols to help keep track of what's what.

Meanwhile, Sony has offered a look at the accessible packaging for the upcoming peripheral. It designed the packaging so that you can open it with one hand by pulling loops from either side. The company said that the components are placed in a single layer to make it easy to identify them.

The Access Controller will be available on December 6. Pre-orders are open at the PlayStation Direct store.

Comcast is upgrading its residential cable internet service to offer upload and download speeds of up to 2 Gbps through decades-old coaxial cables. The company says it's the first ISP in the world to offer multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds to customers through DOCSIS 4.0 technology, which it's powering through the Xfinity 10G network.

The zippy X-Class Internet service will first be available in some neighborhoods in Colorado Springs, Colorado starting next week. It will arrive in parts of Atlanta and Philadelphia soon, and then in other markets over the next few years.

Comcast says DOCSIS 4.0 connections are already available in tens of millions of homes across the US. Multi-gigabit download speeds have been possible via cable for several years. Upgrading to DOCSIS 4.0 will not only improve download speeds but make it possible to deliver symmetric uploads while minimizing lag and avoiding any impact to downstream service.

Comcast has been working on this technology for several years and it aims to offer 2 Gbps symmetrical service in more than 50 million homes by the end of 2025. Since they'll be able to access faster connections through existing coaxial cable infrastructure, many consumers won't need to wait for Comcast to connect their home to a fiber network before they can make the most of multi-gigabit upload and download speeds.

What's more, DOCSIS 4.0 is capable of supporting up to 10 Gbps downstream and up to 6 Gbps upstream speeds, so coaxial cables may be able to carry even faster internet connections in the future. In a test last year, Comcast achieved download speeds of 6 Gbps and upload speeds of 4 Gbps.

Headphones are one of the hottest categories in any major sale and the October Prime Day event is no exception. There are discounts available all over the shop for true wireless earbuds and overear headphones alike. We reckon it's worth drawing attention to the Beats Studio Pro headset, which has dropped to $180. That's nearly half off, given that it regularly sells for $350. It's the lowest price we've seen for these headphones to date.

Over the summer, we gave the Beats Studio Pro a score of 81 in our review. So, they're not exactly the best wireless headphones you can buy. But the conversation changes significantly now that they're down to $180.

A second-generation Beats audio chip helps to deliver better active noise cancellation, spatial audio and dynamic head tracking than previous models from the brand. We found that voice performance was above average and we appreciated the inclusion of a transparency mode and USB-C wired audio for higher-resolution playback.

There are several reasons why the Beats Studio Pro didn't score higher than an 81, however. They're not the most comfortable headphones around and there's no automatic pause feature that kicks in when you take them off. Even though the Beats Studio Pro are from an Apple subsidiary, there's no iOS multipoint connectivity option. So, you can't connect them to, say, your iPhone and Mac at the same time for seamless switching.

Even so, this is an excellent deal, particularly for Beats fans. The sound quality is far better than you'll find on previous Beats models, so if you've been clinging onto an older set for several years, it might be time to upgrade.

Your October Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Fall Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

Hot on the heels of Sony granting PlayStation Plus Premium members access to a library of movies to stream at no extra cost, the company will start offering them another handy feature in the coming weeks. You'll soon be able to play a selection of PlayStation 5 games via cloud streaming, so you won't need to wait for a title to download before you start playing it.

Sony plans to support hundreds of PS5 titles through this new offering, which beta testers have been trying over the last couple of months. The options will include "top PS5 hits" from the PS Plus Game Catalog, including the likes of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Mortal Kombat 11 and Saints Row IV. Timed game trials for the likes of Hogwarts Legacy, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and The Calisto Protocol will be available to stream.

Not only that, you'll be able to stream some games that you've purchased, as well as select free-to-play titles. Sony mentions Resident Evil 4, Dead Island 2, Genshin Impact, Fall Guys and Fortnite as purchased or free games that PS Plus Premium members will be able to play via the cloud.

For nearly four years, Microsoft has been promising the ability for folks to play Xbox games they've purchased via the cloud. That still hasn't come to fruition. Now Sony, which just unveiled slimmer versions of the PS5, looks set to beat Microsoft to the punch.

Sony says in-game purchases and downloadable content including expansions and add-ons will be available in PS5 game streaming. You'll be able to stream PS5 games in up to 4K resolution and there's support for 60 fps and SDR or HDR output — you'll need an internet connection of at least 38 Mbps for the highest quality, Sony says.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

The company is promising enhanced sound with support for functions such as 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound, along with Tempest 3D Audiotech. You'll be able to take screenshots and capture up to three minutes of video, which you can find in the Media Gallery on your console and the PS App.

Sony notes that PS5 game streaming will only be available on the PS5 console "at launch." That implies the option will be available on other devices in the future. Sony's upcoming remote play handheld, the PlayStation Portal, seems like a prime candidate for cloud gaming. For the time being, the device will only support the ability to stream games from your own PS5 console.

Here's hoping that PS5 game streaming will be available on PC in the future, as well as on phones and tablets. It remains odd that Sony teamed up with Backbone for a PlayStation-branded version of the Backbone One controller without offering a cloud gaming option on mobile devices.

It is worth noting that Sony is adding PS5 game streaming not long after it bumped up the annual cost of a PS Plus Premium membership. The subscription now costs $160 for 12 months, up from $120.

Sony says that PS5 cloud gaming is "a large undertaking for our teams to roll out," so it's staging a phased rollout. It's planning to make the feature available in Japan on October 17, Europe on October 23 and North America on October 30. As it stands, cloud gaming on PS Plus Premium is available in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

Meanwhile, Sony has revealed the next titles that PS Plus Extra and Premium members will be able to play through the Game Catalog, including a bunch of horror titles, given that Halloween is on the horizon. Gotham Knights, Disco Elysium – The Final Cut, The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, Alien: Isolation, Dead Island Definitive Edition, Outlast 2, Elite Dangerous, Far: Changing Tides, Gungrave G.O.R.E. and Röki will be available to members on both tiers on October 17. Premium members will also gain access to Tekken 6, Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny, Ape Escape Academy and IQ Final on the same day.

Amazon's October Prime Day sale is rolling on, and there are a bunch of solid deals for Nintendo Switch users. Not only can you scoop up several games (including Nintendo first-party titles) for a lower price than usual, you can snap up a microSD card for a song to boost the console's storage.

On the games front, many Switch exclusives are at least $10 off. The turn-based strategy game Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope is $30 (its predecessor, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, isn't on sale but it will run you $24). This spin-off series could be a solid entry point for those looking to explore a different genre popularized by the likes of XCOM.

Another Mario spin-off is on sale, with Mario Golf: Super Rush dropping to $40. Those looking for a more traditional flavor of everyone's favorite plumber may be tempted by the wonderful Super Mario Maker 2, which offers millions of user-created 2D Mario levels along with a bunch that Nintendo developers crafted. That game will run you $40.

There are several other Switch exclusives on sale that may catch your eye. Metroid Dread, Samus' ultra-tense return to a Nintendo console, is $40. Fire Emblem Engage, a tactics RPG that debuted at the start of this year, has dropped to $30.

And then there's the small matter of Nintendo's most important game of 2023. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is not on sale on Amazon at the minute, unfortunately. But you can find a good deal on the game of the year contender at Walmart, where it has dropped to $48.

You might not stop with these games, though. You may end up buying some from Nintendo's eShop as well (of note, some of these game deals are available for digital versions). In which case, you'll probably need a microSD card to store them on, given the Switch's paltry onboard storage of 32GB.

Samsung’s Evo Select is our pick for the best value microSD card. It doesn't perform as well as the Samsung Pro Plus, but it's plenty adequate for the Switch and the prices are hard to beat. The 512GB version of the Evo Select, which should give you enough space to store dozens of games, is on sale for $28. That's $7 off the usual price and it marks an all-time low. The 128GB model is also chapear than ever. It'll run you $10.

Your October Prime Day Shopping Guide: See all of our Prime Day coverage. Shop the best Prime Day deals on Yahoo Life. Follow Engadget for Prime Day tech deals. Learn about Prime Day trends on In The Know. Hear from Autoblog’s experts on the best Fall Prime Day deals for your car, garage, and home, and find Prime Day sales to shop on AOL, handpicked just for you.

The huge October Prime Day sale isn’t done yet. There are deals aplenty to check out before the sale ends Wednesday night/Thursday morning, including a discount on August’s fourth-gen smart lock.

The black version of the device has dropped to $158, which is $72 off the regular price. The silver version is available for $160. This is not quite the lowest price we’ve seen for this model — it has dropped to $139 in the past — but this is still a solid discount.

This is one of our favorite smart locks. We gave it a score of 80 in our review. It's easy to install and the smart lock won't take up too much space, so it shouldn't look too clunky on your door — it's slimmer than prior iterations. You won't need a separate bridge device to use the Wi-Fi feature either, as it can directly connect to your network. On that note, August's fourth-gen smart lock is only compatible with 2.4GHz networks, so you may need to adjust your router settings to account for that.

The smart lock should work with most existing deadbolts, so you'll be able to use the same physical keys if need be. That's handy for when your Wi-Fi is on the fritz. Otherwise, you'll be able to lock and unlock your door remotely, including with the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant. You'll also have the ability to provide guests (such as kind friends who are checking on pets and plants while you're away) with timed-entry keys, which will allow them to enter without having to wait for you to unlock the door manually.

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