It has been almost six months since the announcement of Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, the video game developer and publisher behind beloved franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and Wolfenstein. Today, the EU has finally cleared Microsoft’s acquisition of the publisher in the United States and Europe and while the results of the acquisition have yet to come to fruition, fans have taken to Twitter to discuss a crucial factor in Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda – Game Pass.
Microsoft announced its acquisition of ZeniMax Media on September 21, 2020, the day before pre-orders for the Xbox Series X/S went live. With the acquisition, Microsoft has also acquired all 13 of Bethesda’s internal studios, including id Software, Arkane Studios, MachineGames, and Tango GameWorks, and iconic video game franchises such as Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, and more.
One area Microsoft has yet to comment on due to legal reasons surrounding the acquisition is whether Bethesda’s future titles, such as Starfield, will be exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC, or whether Microsoft will keep publishing Bethesda’s titles on competitors’ platforms, like PlayStation and Nintendo, as it does with Minecraft. Microsoft has claimed that it intends to keep Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo as timed PS5 exclusives, as they were part of deals already set in place with Sony. Fans have taken to Twitter to discuss their takes on what Microsoft plans to do with Bethesda’s future titles and whether they will come to PS5.
Microsoft confirmed upon announcing Bethesda’s acquisition that all of the publisher’s past and future games will come to Xbox Game Pass after the acquisition is finalized. It also confirmed that Bethesda’s future games will join the service at launch and be playable on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and mobile devices via the cloud. In 2020, Xbox Head Phil Spencer claimed that Bethesda’s games would come to PlayStation platforms on a “case by case basis,” however since then, no further clarification has provided insight into how this will reflect on PlayStation fans waiting to play games like Starfield.
The Microsoft Bethesda acquisition has also revealed that Microsoft plans to allow Bethesda to act independently, with no major changes to the company’s management or workflow. It is also likely that Bethesda will return with its own summer games showcase similar to its past E3 conferences, independently of Microsoft’s Xbox game showcases. This is especially intriguing considering that rumors have recently surfaced claiming that Starfield is eying a 2021 release window.
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