Microsoft Closes Acquisition of ZeniMax for $7.5B

Tech giant Microsoft has closed its huge $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax, the parent company of Bethesda.

The company has confirmed that some new Bethesda games would be exclusive to Xbox consoles and PCs.

It was this past September that Microsoft had said it would be buying ZeniMax in an all-cash transaction. It’s the biggest acquisition for the company in its history. Even bigger than the $2.5 billion Microsoft had paid to buy Minecraft developer Mojang back in 2014.

The European Union and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gave the takeover the green light of approval recently which will allow Bethesda, a household name in gaming, to join the Microsoft family.

Bethesda has published a number of hit franchises including the role-playing game series Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, and the Doom shooter franchise.
Microsoft confirmed the news in a blog post on Tuesday.

“With the addition of the Bethesda creative teams, gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players,” said Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox unit.

The deal includes Bethesda sub-studios like Dishonored developer Arkane, Wolfenstein studio MachineGames, Doom maker id Software, and The Evil Within studio Tango Gameworks. Microsoft now has 23 first-party game studios, compared to Sony’s 13 PlayStation Studios.

In a separate blog post, Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines reveals that there won’t be any big changes just yet. Hines wrote, “First, let me say that we’re not making any landmark announcements or changes right now. As we’ve all shared, the expectation is that Bethesda Softworks and our studios will continue as we have in the past, just with more support and resources than we’ve ever had before.
Obviously, Game Pass has been an important initiative for Xbox, and we’ll be working on putting even more of our games into Game Pass than ever before. Beyond that? Stay tuned, we’re just getting started together.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.