Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda is all about Game Pass
It feels like we’ve been holding our collective breath for it without realising. Ever since Microsoft set about fixing Xbox’s weakness in first-party studios with an acquisition spree that started last year – picking up many mid-sized outfits such as Playground Games, Ninja Theory and Obsidian – we’ve been waiting for the megaton, the super-acquisition that would snap up some high-profile studio and treasured franchise. Reports circulated recently that talks to buy Bungie had fallen through. Some figured that an even bigger target might be in play, all the way up to and including super-publishers like EA and Activision Blizzard.
It turns out those speculations were not as wild as you might have thought. Microsoft has announced its intention to buy Bethesda parent ZeniMax for an eye-watering $7.5 billion – three times what it paid for Minecraft maker Mojang, and only a billion short of what Disney paid for Marvel and Lucasfilm . This brings mega-franchises The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom within the Xbox fold and increases Microsoft’s roll-call of first-party developers by no less than eight studios, including such storied names Bethesda Game Studios, id Software and Arkane.
Is this the most significant acquisition the games business has ever seen? Yes and no. In pure dollar terms, Tencent’s acquisition of Clash of Clans maker Supercell has it beat, at an astonishing $8.6 billion. It’s hard to put a dollar value on the 2008 merger between Activision and Blizzard owner Vivendi, since it was an exchange of shares and ownership stakes, but it was in the same ballpark – and Blizzard was such a prize that it took possession of half the new company’s name as part of the deal. Away from the numbers, Minecraft penetrates far deeper into the general public consciousness than any Bethesda properties, even Doom, as well as having a broader demographic reach. But I don’t think we’ve ever seen such a showy power move from a platform holder: snapping up a big publisher, a network of talented studios and a slew of valuable properties in one move.
Starfield – E3 2018 Announcement Teaser Watch on YouTube
The assumption, per the old-school console-wars logic, is that Microsoft will make those properties exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC – and that prospective PlayStation 5 owners can kiss goodbye to the thought of playing Bethesda’s hotly anticipated Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 on their next console. (And it’s not just PlayStation fans – as a publisher, Bethesda has been a notable supporter of Switch, too.) This would seem to be the immediate value in the deal, and it’s notable it has been announced the day before preorders for Xbox Series X and S open.
