Microsoft’s $ 7.5 billion purchase of Zenimax Media, parent company of To fall, The Elder Scrolls, and Doom creator Bethesda, overcame another set of obstacles, obtaining approval to proceed of the European Commission and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns, given the limited market position of the combined entity upstream and the presence of strong downstream competitors in the distribution of video games,” says a new update. on the European Commission website.
The SEC also gave the green light. As NME first reported, one Effectiveness note was posted on the regulatory agency’s website on March 4, which means that accepted the purchase details as presented by Microsoft, including the effect on stock prices. Previously, Zenimax Media was a private company, while Microsoft is a public company.
Business plans were first announced last September, with the acquisition expected to be completed later this year. Although this will bring the total number of original Microsoft game studios up to 23 colossal, it remains to be seen how the company will leverage Bethesda games that traditionally are multiplatform.
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Bethesda’s next games, like Arkane’s Deathloop and Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire: Tokyo, both exclusive to the PS5 console scheduled to launch in 2021, will retain the terms of the original agreements, Microsoft had previously confirmed. At the same time, the company kept the door open to make games in addition, as The Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield, Xbox exclusives. In an interview with CNBC last september, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said games like these would be available on the day and date on the Xbox Game Pass, but said Bloomberg this exclusivity would be decided on a case-by-case basis.
In an interview with Kotaku Last october, Spencer said it would be possible for Microsoft to recover the cost of the acquisition without bringing games like The Elder Scrolls VI for the PlayStation. “[W]When I think about where people are going to play and the number of devices we had, and we have xCloud and PC and Game Pass and our console base, I don’t have to ship these games on any platform other than the platforms we support for make the business work for us, ”he said.
Although the deal has not yet been finalized, it apparently has already had an effect on the rest of the game’s development landscape. Last month, Kotaku reported that Google Stadia chief Phil Harrison told the team at an internal meeting that the acquisition of Microsoft was one of the factors that led it to close the book on game development in less than two years after the formation of entirely new studios.