The Commission is striving to ensure that you may still play Call of Duty on other platforms (including my Playstation), according to Ricardo Cardoso, the Deputy Head of Unit Interinstitutional & Outreach at the regulating body in a tweet earlier this week.
Even though the states complied with the body’s mandate in terms of facts, some gamers criticized it for what they saw as Sony bias, especially in light of Xbox’s repeated assurances that Call of Duty will stay on PlayStation for the foreseeable future.
Now, Cardoso is not at all involved in the process, the European Commission has explained in a statement to Tweaktown. The statement states that Mr Cardoso is employed by the Director General for the Internal Market not the Directorate General for Competition.
“The evaluation of this transaction is not being done by Mr Cardoso. Furthermore, he tweets in a personal capacity as is crystal evident from his Twitter profile.
To be clear, I’m not involved in the merger’s evaluation and don’t even work in the department that handles mergers, Cardoso tweeted on Saturday. My comments are personal and not representative of the Commission, whose decision will be based on the facts and the law, as is evident from my profile.
The usage of “my” while referring to PlayStation in the initial tweet seems to have offended fans the most, however, Cardoso was referring to the console he owns, rather than a devotion to a platform. The proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft has been subject to a thorough investigation by the European Commission.
The European watchdog announced on Tuesday that it has launched a “phase II” inquiry into the $68.7 billion acquisition following its initial investigations, as was expected, citing worries about possible harm to competition.
The proposed acquisition, it stated, “raises concerns that it may lessen competition in the markets for the distribution of video games for consoles and personal computers (‘PCs’) as well as for PC operating systems.”
Regulators in Saudi Arabia and Brazil have authorized the transaction, but the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has extended its probe into a second phase. Before making a final decision by March 1, it is currently soliciting public input on the acquisition from interested parties.
According to reports, the US Federal Trade Commission may rule on the transaction this month. Phil Spencer, the head of gaming at Microsoft recently stated that he continues to be optimistic that the deal will be authorized and that he thinks that authorities’ close investigation of the transaction is “fair” and “warranted.”
