PlayStation maker Sony has called the UK's Competition and Markets Authority's (CMA) reversed stance "surprising, unprecedented, and irrational."

This comes in a response to the government body finding that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard would in fact not harm competition within the games console space. This came in the wake of new evidence that helped relieve some of the CMA's concerns about the deal, something that Sony believes is not accurate.

"SIE respectfully submits that the addendum does not justify the CMA’s U-turn on the consoles theory of harm," the PlayStation giant wrote.

Microsoft, unsurprisingly, has welcomed this change in stance from the CMA.

"Microsoft has been clear since the announcement of the merger: it has no intention to withhold or degrade access to Call of Duty or any other Activision content on PlayStation," the company wrote.

"Such a strategy would be in direct contrast to the interests of gamers in the UK and around the world. Rather than limit choice or access, Microsoft intends to use the merger to bring more games to more people on more platforms and devices."

The CMA might now believe that Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard would not harm competition in the console space, but the organisation does still have concerns about the impact on the cloud games space. This is something that the Xbox giant has tried to alleviate by signing deals with Nvidia GeForce and Ukrainian company Boosteroid.