Ticker: High-speed rail launches in Florida; UK signals OK on Microsoft, Activision Blizzard deal

A privately owned high-speed passenger train service launched Friday between Florida’s two biggest tourist hubs.

The Brightline train is a $5 billion bet by owner Fortress Investment Group that eventually 8 million people annually will take the 3.5-hour, 235-mile trip between Miami and Orlando — about 30 minutes less than the average drive.

The company is charging single riders $158 round-trip for business class and $298 for first-class, with families and groups able to buy four round-trip tickets for $398. Thirty-two trains will run daily.

Brightline, which began running its neon-yellow trains the 70 miles between Miami and West Palm Beach in 2018, is the first private intercity passenger service to begin U.S. operations in a century.

The only other U.S. high-speed line is Amtrak’s Acela service between Boston and Washington, D.C., which began in 2000. Amtrak is owned by the federal government.

UK signals OK on Microsoft, Activision Blizzard deal

Microsoft’s restructured acquisition of Santa Monica video game giant Activision Blizzard “opens the door” to the deal being cleared, U.K. regulators said Friday, removing a major hurdle for closing what would be the gaming industry’s largest merger.

The $68.7B deal was initially blocked by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority in April, after the regulator raised concerns that the deal would harm competition in cloud-based gaming in the country.

Under the new agreement, Microsoft will not purchase the cloud gaming rights held by Activision, which will instead be sold to an independent third party, rival gaming firm Ubisoft.

As a result, Microsoft would not be in a position to limit access to Activision’s key content to its own cloud gaming service or to withhold those games from rivals, the Competition and Markets Authority said.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/ozbIj25