This is the acquisition that never ends. Yes it goes on and on, my friend.

As reported on several times last week, the only remaining hurdle standing in the way of Microsoft closing the deal on their Activision Blizzard acquisition was the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Microsoft and the CMA got together on Monday, July 17th as planned to try to either finalize a deal that would satisfy the CMA.

After a few hours of talks today, both sides agreed that Microsoft would pause their appeal of the CMA's decision to block the Activision Blizzard merger. The two parties requested this pause last week in order to allow for more time to negotiate a satisfactory cloud gaming deal. Remember, the big reason that the CMA did not approve the deal back in April was because of cloud gaming of all things.

The agreement to pause the appeal does come with a tiny catch. Microsoft has a few requirements that they will need to satisfy by Thursday, July 20th before the agreement is made official. If satisfied, the CMA has agreed to extend the date for its final decision from July 18th to August 29th. This does mean that it's pretty likely Microsoft's deal will need to be temporarily extended beyond the July 18th deadline.

In short, this means that the deal probably won't be closed this week. It probably also means that it could take upwards of six weeks for the deal to come to a thrilling conclusion. Now, whether or not a temporary extension of the deal beyond the July 18th deadline will lead to other roadblocks in other parts of the world remains to be seen. Will the FTC try something else now? Who the hell knows. Just get this over with already.