9/23
Microsoft purchased ZeniMax and its game studios—Bethesda, id, Arkane, and Machine Games, among others—for $7.5B this week. One, that is a lot of money; two, the power of that move is off the charts. As a brief reminder, here are just three franchises that portfolio includes: The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Doom. If you look at this with the most pessimistic view, assuming ZeniMax's studios' franchises will only release on Xbox or PC moving forward, this would change the landscape of the video game industry. I don't think that's going to happen but that's the scale of this purchase; it's huge.
Falcon from Gameranx shares some excellent perspective on this in a recent video. I agree with his position that these franchises will likely continue to release in a mostly multi-platform manner. Microsoft has been pretty diplomatic about some of its other high profile and expensive acquisitions, generally supporting what was working and not messing with a good thing. I expect that spirit to continue, especially since this deal is at the Microsoft—not Xbox—level.
Gating such a large collection of popular franchises goes against the philosophy Xbox has approached the new console generation with. Remember, that's Sony's carrot; gamers are supposed to pick up a PS5 because of its proven, high-quality exclusives. Xbox chose a different path and so I suspect this acquisition isn't a signal of an about face for Xbox. If Xbox were to change their mind, however, Sony would be in serious trouble.
Above all, this acquisition makes Game Pass even more appealing. The promise of having all future Bethesda games at release is a powerful hook, even before you consider the competitively priced Series S. I don't know how Sony counters this but this is a big enough development that I can't imagine they do nothing. Before, they could have waited to see just how big a threat Game Pass was. Now, it's clear that it is and will be even more of one in the future. Think about the choice a gamer will have to make when they see The Elder Scrolls 6 or Starfield on release day: they can spend $69.99 for it on PS5 or subscribe to Game Pass for $14.99/mo and get it for free (plus a bunch of other games). And they'll be able to play it on a range of hardware—Xbox Series X, Series S, or PC.