EU Wants To Know If Microsoft Will Block Rivals After Activision Deal

The CMA said merging Activision with Microsoft could allow the tech giant to use games to 'damage' competition in the growing market for cloud gaming, which allows consumers to stream games to their devices in a manner similar to Netflix's offering for movies and TV shows.

There's still a long way to go, but it aims to end the disposal of toxic batteries at landfill sites and recover valuable elements that are in limited supply: copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese and the so-called metal of the decade, lithium.

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Games developers, publishers and distributors were asked whether the deal would affect their bargaining power regarding the terms for pkvgames selling console and PC games via Microsoft's Xbox and its cloud game streaming service Game Pass.

'And all this hard work's been worth it though, I am so proud to have been able to collaborate with you and Miyamoto-san, as well as the entire Nintendo and the Illumination team on this cinematic experience.

'We'll make an assessment from [the CCTV] but, obviously, we're on the back foot from the beginning because we didn't have the initial complaint at the time it occurred, which would have been my preference,' he said. 

Xbox maker Microsoft announced the $69 billion acquisition of "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard Inc in January and has pledged to keep the hit franchise on PlayStation beyond the existing agreement with Activision.

'We have been working on this movie, together with Chris Meledandri from Illumination, for a long time, from brainstorming and all the way through production. The time flew by as we were having fun figuring out how to depict the Super Mario characters and world.'

"We recognise this has presented issues for the recycling industry as it scales up and adjusts to a role in product stewardship with its increased focus on transparency and accountability," he wrote in a report on the scheme's first six months of operation.

'It's been nearly 40 years since the first original Mario Brothers was released in Japan,' he said in a video which aired before the sneak peek. 'Today, lots of people from around the world are playing Mario games.

The questionnaire, with about 100 questions, asked which of the rivals such as Nvidia's GeForce Now, Sony's Playstation, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna and Facebook Gaming could be considered the most attractive following the deal.

BRUSSELS, Oct 6 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators are asking games developers whether Microsoft will be incentivised to block rivals' access to "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard's best-selling games, according to an EU document seen by Reuters.

The scheme is focused on making it ultra-convenient for Australian consumers to recycle batteries and drastically reduce the estimated 90 per cent of batteries that wound up in landfill before the scheme began.

Look at all this Koopa muscle I've packed on, and this flowing mane didn't just appear overnight. Do you have any idea how long it took me to breathe fire?' he joked. 'I had to go learn it from Gene Simmons of Kiss! 

They asked if such exclusivity clauses would reinforce Microsoft's Windows operating system versus rivals, and whether the addition of Activision to its PC operating system, cloud computing services and game-related software tools gives it an advantage in the video gaming industry.

The EU competition enforcer also asked if Activision's trove of user data would give the U.S. software giant a competitive advantage in the development, publishing and distribution of computer and console games, the EU document shows.

Regulators also wanted to know if there would be sufficient alternative suppliers in the market following the deal and also in the event Microsoft decides to make Activision's games exclusively available on its Xbox, its Games Pass and its cloud game streaming services.

"This growth is also leading to concerns about the impact of new energy systems on the long-term availability of resources and the economic and environmental impacts of the extraction and use of critical metals and other elements.

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'And then it first came out on Nintendo and I played that, maybe years of my life. It's an honor, truly to be able to speak to the man who created those memories for me, and it's an honor to work alongside. It's been a lifelong dream of mine to become Mario.' 

This is not the first film adaptation of the beloved video games, with a live-action film starring Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo released in 1993. However the film, Super Mario Bros., bombed at the box office and opened to dire reviews.