The tweet from Ricardo Cardoso somewhat cast doubt on the impartiality of the European Commission in the ongoing merger investigation Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard.
Ambiguous comments?
The European Commission announced on November 8 that it would open a phase 2 investigation into the Microsoft-Activision merger. On the same day, Ricardo Cardoso, deputy head of the interagency markets directorate, tweeted ambiguous comments about the Microsoft takeover.
“The Commission is working to ensure that you can still play Call of Duty on other consoles (including my Playstation). Also on our to-do list: update stockphotos. These players have wired controllers whereas Xbox and Playstation have had wireless controllers since around 2006!” said Mr. Cardoso.
Ricardo Cardoso’s remarks immediately challenged the players and aroused numerous criticisms: according to the latter, the message suggests that the European Commission is not impartial and that she would have already chosen her camp in favor of sonyand therefore against the Microsoft Activision merger.
The European Commission reacts
Adriana Podesta, spokesperson for the European Commission reacted quickly to the official’s remarks and clarified in a statement to Tweaktown that Mr. Cardoso is not involved in the process in any way.
“Mr Cardoso works in the Directorate-General for the Internal Market and not in the Directorate-General for Competition“, can we read in the statement. “Mr. Cardoso is not involved in the assessment of this transaction. Also, as his Twitter profile makes clear, he tweets in a personal capacity.”
Cardoso then bounced back from the statement and clarified his comments, again via Tweeter:
“To clarify: I am not involved in the assessment of the merger and do not even work in the department dealing with mergers. As is clear from my profile, my comments are personal and do not constitute a position of the Commission, whose decision will be taken on the basis of facts and law.”
Players can therefore be reassured about the impartiality of the European Commission regarding the case, even if Ricardo Cardoso should have refrained from quoting the latter in his tweet.
xbox
During an interview with Wired, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox Game Studios and head of product for the Xbox branch, spoke about the possibility of reviving Blizzard classics once the acquisition project has been completed.