Japan's competition regulator, Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), yesterday issued a press release in which it announces an approval of Microsoft's proposed $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard. The JFTC's review has concluded and their members have: "reached the conclusion that the transaction is unlikely to result in substantially restraining competition in any particular fields of trade." This represents another regional victory for Microsoft, and follows last week's approval of the deal by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The JFTC has informed both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard that a cease and desist order will be not be issued, thus completing its investigation.

The timing of this new development is raising eyebrows - in last week's Senate Finance Committee, several US Members of Congress raised concerns about Sony's "monopoly" over the Japanese gaming market. The Japanese government was also accused of being complicit in its inaction and has: "allowed Sony to engage in blatant anti-competitive conduct through exclusive deals and payments to game publishers." Games industry watchdogs have questioned why another rival console and games company, Nintendo, was not brought up as subject matter in the debate. Microsoft has dedicated considerable resources into getting its proposed deal approved by international antitrust watchdogs, and has even offered to expand the Activision Blizzard games library onto Nintendo hardware platforms.Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard was approved by regulatory bodies in Brazil and Saudi Arabia in 2022. The UK's CMA delivered a provisional thumbs up last week, and announced further investigations into possible disruptions of competition within the cloud gaming service sector. The UK antitrust watchdog's stance appears to have shifted since February - when it declared that the proposed acquisition had the potential to "harm U.K. gamers".Microsoft's next set of challenges will transpire with the European Union and USA - the latter's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Microsoft in December 2022, in order to block the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The European Commission has delayed its provisional deadline to rule on the deal from April 25 to May 22, following Microsoft's offering of extra incentives - details of which are redacted from public view.