It is likely to be one of the largest takeovers in the game industry to date — Microsoft has officially announced the takeover of Zenimax Media, the company to which Bethesda (Doom, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls) and all of the development studios connected to it belong.
Microsoft has acquired not only the company, with its 2,300 employees, but also all of its video games, licenses that have sold hundreds of millions of units across all platforms.
Among other things, the deal also affects id Software and game series such as Doom and Quake, Machine Games with Wolfenstein, Arkane Studios with Dishonored and Deathloop, and studios such as Tango Gameworks and Alpha Dog — all of which belong entirely to Microsoft upon conclusion of the deal.
By this deal, Microsoft is increasing the number of in-house Xbox studios from 15 to 23.
For the takeover, Microsoft is paying previous investors around $7.5 billion in Zenimax Media. And also, the previous studio boss Todd Howard and the often public marketing director Pete Hines will stay with Bethesda.
In the company blog, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, writes that the games from Bethesda, in the future, will be included in the Xbox Game Pass subscription for consoles and PC.
With the takeover, Microsoft is strengthening itself, especially in the competition with Sony and the Playstation 5. So far, Sony is generally regarded as the company with the more exciting exclusive games for its console.
