“Today is a special day, as we welcome some of the most accomplished studios in the games industry to Xbox,” said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, on Xbox Wire. “We are thrilled to announce Microsoft has entered into an agreement to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks.”
This has become the largest acquisition in gaming history, three times as large as Microsoft’s purchase of Mojang back in 2014 for $2.5 Billion. The announcement came a day before pre-orders became available for Xbox’s new generation of consoles, the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S.
“We’re still Bethesda. We’re still working on the same games we were yesterday, made by the same studios we’ve worked with for years, and those games will be published by us,” Pete Hines, Bethesda’s senior vice president of PR and marketing, said in a blog post. “[The deal] allows us to make even better games going forward. Microsoft is an incredible partner and offers access to resources that will make us a better publisher and developer.”
