Elder Scrolls: Redmond, as Microsoft buys Bethesda

Well, here’s a piece of news that I was certainly not expecting. Microsoft has just announced that they have purchased ZeniMax Media, parent company of Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda, for $7.5 billion.

“Bethesda’s games have always had a special place on Xbox and in the hearts of millions of gamers around the world. Our teams have a close and storied history working together, from the amazing first DOOM, and its id Tech engine, innovating games on PCs to Bethesda bringing their first console game to the original Xbox, the groundbreaking The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,” the company said in a press release.

The purchase includes storied franchises such as Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein among others.

This is certainly an interesting shakeup within the industry. While Bethesda’s reputation has soured lately due to the dumpster fire that is Fallout 76, most of their titles over the past decade have been massive critical and commercial hits. Skyrim for example still sits as the 19th best selling game of all time, nearly a decade after its release.

Microsoft hasn’t really made clear what it intends to do with the publisher going forward, including whether they plan to make their games exclusive to Xbox and Windows PC. Something which will certainly rustle the jimmies of PlayStation loyalists whom are also fans of those franchises. Though the company has been porting some of their games over to the Switch, so it’s entirely possible they’ll remain multi-platform. However, this could be just the shot in the arm Xbox needs.

One of the biggest problems with the platform is a lack of notable first and second party games, giving players little incentive to chose it over competing systems. With their purchase of Obsidian last year, it seems Microsoft is poised to make Xbox a WRPG destination, along with that massive player base to go with it. Of course picking up Doom and Quake in the deal also makes a lot of sense, given those franchises’ history with the PC.

The console cold war suddenly got hot lads, and it seems like the boys in Redmond are poised to take on PlayStation with maximum aggression this time around. It’s a bold move Cotton, and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.