Last year came the announcement that Microsoft was planning to purchase Bethesda, making it the first instance of a platform holder buying a primary third-party developer.
On Tuesday, Microsoft's purchase of Bethesda has finally born the fruit most people were expecting. Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, laid out the real news in a blog post welcoming its new set of studios to the Microsoft company,
Microsoft Purchases Bethesda
The Verge confirmed that Microsoft has finalized its acquisition of Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax Media, for $7.6 billion. It has also been approved by the EU, which seals the deal.
With the acquisition, it bolsters the company's first-party Xbox games studios up to a total of 23. In comparison, Sony has only 13 PlayStation Studios.
The Microsoft-Bethesda deal includes sub-studios such as Arkane, MachineGames, id Software and Tango Gameworks. The company now reportedly plans to improve and add more to the library of exclusive games it offers on Windows and Xbox consoles, and the accompanying subscribtion services such as Xbox GamePass and more.
Bethesda will be running as a different business at Microsoft, along with its current leaders and bosses. This is the same approach Microsoft has used for its recent significant acquisitions, including Mojang, LinkedIn and GitHub.
A Word From Microsoft
Meanwhile, the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, wrote about the acquisition of Microsoft's Xbox Wire, saying that the company and Besthesda can now work together to deliver more great games to everyone as everything is official. The company's goal is to give these teams the best foundation for doing their most excellent work and learn from the game developers, as both companies continue to build Xbox into an inclusive platform for gamers.
Spencer continued that with the addition of the Bethesda creative teams, gamers will know that Xbox consoles, PC and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games--including other game titles that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC consoles in the future, per Polygon.
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Back in November, Microsoft tried to argue there was more variation to this point. Tim Stuart, CFO of the Xbox division, implied that console exclusives could happen. The company, however, wanted to focus more on making games better on the Xbox than cutting off Nintendo or Sony players.
Tim Stuart stated that Microsoft has no intentions of pulling all of Bethesda's content from Sony or Nintendo. In the long run, the company wants content to be either first or better differentiated on their platforms.
"We will want Bethesda content to show up the best as - on our platforms. Yes. That's not a point about being exclusive. That is not a point about we're being - adjusting timing or content or road map," Stuart explained.
Microsoft wants Bethesda games to be like Game Pass, and it is something the company will offer to their gamers, as Extreme Tech reported.
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