Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell has offered Microsoft a timely show of support as the Xbox maker bids to convince anti-trust regulators to approve its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The European Commission and the UK’s CMA recently launched in-depth probes into the $68.7 billion deal, while Microsoft executives are set to meet US FTC chair Lina Khan and other commissioners on Wednesday in order to make their case for why the transaction shouldn’t be blocked over competition concerns. The future of the Call of Duty series as a multiplatform product is one of the key areas being examined by anti-trust regulators scrutinising the planned acquisition.