Microsoft’s purchase of $ 7.5 billion Zenimax Media, parent company of Fallout The Elder Scrolls, and Doom maker Bethesda, has overcome another series of hurdles and won approval to continue from both the European Commission and the US Securities and Exchange Commissions
“The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition does not raise any competition concerns, given the limited market position of the combined entity upstream and the presence of strong downstream competitors in video game distribution,” reads a new update on the website of the European Commission
The SEC has similarly given the green light. As NME first reported, a Note of effectiveness was posted on the regulatory agency’s website on March 4, meaning it is accepted it details of the acquisition as submitted by Microsoft, including the effect on stock prices. Previously, Zenimax Media was privately held, while Microsoft is publicly traded.
The plans for the deal were first announced last September, and the acquisition is expected to close sometime later this year. While that will yield the total number of first-party game studios from Microsoft as many as 23, it remains to be seen how the company will leverage games from Bethesda that have traditionally been multi-platform.
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Upcoming Bethesda games such as Arkane’s Deathloop and Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire: Tokyo, both PS5-exclusive consoles due out in 2021 will adhere to the terms of those original deals, Microsoft had previously confirmed. At the same time, the company has kept the door open for making games that go beyond, such as The Elder Scrolls VI and StarfieldExclusive to Xbox. In an interview with CNBC last SeptemberXbox boss Phil Spencer said games like this day and date would be available on Xbox Game Pass, but told Bloomberg such 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 recoup the cost of the acquisition without games like The Elder Scrolls VI to 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 need to ship those games on a different platform than the platforms we support to get the deal for make us work, ”he said.
While the deal is not yet finalized, it has apparently already had an effect on the rest of the game development landscape. Last month, Kotaku reported Phil Harrison, head of Google Stadia told the staff at an internal meeting that the Microsoft acquisition was one of the factors that had led to the book on game development for the first batch closing less than two years after the creation of all-new studios.