Many Bethesda fans are worried today as Microsoft has just announced that it has acquired Zenimax Media, the parent company to Bethesda, which owns the rights to The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, DOOM, Wolfenstein, and more. Some Bethesda fans have taken to Twitter and share their uncertainty in regards to the purchase, comparing it to Microsoft’s 2002 acquisition of Rare.
From 1994 to 2002, Rare worked closely with Nintendo as a major second-party developer, releasing such titles as the Donkey Kong Country series, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Golden Eye, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 consoles. After Rare’s purchase by Microsoft, the company created new franchises such as Viva Pinata and various Kinect titles. Through the years, many fans have felt that Rare had lost its magic touch for gaming, with titles like Conker and Perfect Dark fading into obscurity, and other games like Banjo-Kazooie getting poorly received sequels.
Fans are comparing Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda to Rare, stating that the same thing could happen to some of Bethesda’s IPs like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, if not handled properly by Microsoft.
While this reaction by some fans is understandable, there’s no way of knowing whether this spells bad news for the company or not. A lot has changed at Microsoft since its 2002 acquisition of Rare, and Rare itself has seen many changes through the years. Most recently, Rare released Sea of Thieves, which has gone on to become a big commercial success for the company and selling over 15 million copies as of July 2020.
It’s unclear if anything major will be changed within Bethesda, now that the company is under Microsoft’s wings, or if Bethesda’s various titles will become exclusive to the Xbox brand moving forward.
Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, recently stated that the company is only looking to acquire new studios that can feel supported, and that all new studios are “on-boarded in the right way.” The company seems to have a fairly positive attitude when it comes to its own expansion and acquiring new studios. This mindset appears to differ quite a bit from the days of Rare’s acquisition, and hopefully show signs of a great new era for both Microsoft, Bethesda, and the Xbox brand overall. With the Xbox Series X set to launch later this holiday season, gamers will soon see what the companies have in store for players in the coming months and years.
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