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STORY: Microsoft could finally move past a big obstacle in its aim to buy gamemaker Activision Blizzard.

On Friday (September 22), Britain's antitrust regulator said a restructured buyout 'opens the door' to the deal being cleared.

Microsoft announced the biggest gaming acquisition in history last year for the 'Call of Duty' maker.

But British competition regulators blocked the $69 billion takeover in April.

They had concerns the U.S. computing giant would have too much control over the cloud gaming market.

To counter this, Activision agreed to sell its streaming rights to French gaming firm Ubisoft.

And British regulators say the divestment 'substantially' addressed their concerns.

Microsoft said it was 'encouraged', and would keep working towards earning approval to close the deal before an October 18 deadline.

But Britain's regulator said it still had "residual concerns".

It thinks some provisions in the Ubisoft agreement could be circumvented, terminated or not enforced.

The watchdog is now studying remedies offered by Microsoft to ensure that the terms of the sale are enforceable by the regulator.