Microsoft's Acquisition of Bethesda to be Ruled on by EU Regulators by March 5 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 February 2021 / 1,423 Views
Microsoft announced in September 2020 it had worked out a deal to acquire Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion.
Reuters is reporting that Microsoft has requested approval with the European Commission on January 29 and that if approved the deal could close on March 5. The deal will be decided by EU antitrust regulators.
ZeniMax Media owns several developers with many popular video game IPs. The list of games Microsoft would now own if the deal is approved includes The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Wolfenstein, Rage, Dishonored, Starfield, and many more.
It was recently announced Wolfenstein developer, MachineGames, is developing a new Indiana Jones game with an original story. Other confirmed games in development by ZeniMax developers includes The Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield, Deathloop, Ghostwire: Tokyo, and Wolfenstein III.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
More Articles
This is just a formality and it is expected/normal.
Every other deal like that would need to go through the EU commission for approval as some studios are in the EU. And there is no reason to believe it won't be approved. This is actually some good news as it gives up a bit of a timeframe of the acquisition plan.
Microsoft, an american company, buys Zenimax, another american company, and it's the EU the one checking for possible monopoly problems? How does that work?
Oh, that makes sense. By the way, in the hypothetical case the EU didn't approve, what would happen?
In this case with just the two developers it should be a certainty , since they were fine with US company Zenimax owning them it would be be harder if Zenimax was European
as to the question they could do a number of things like arranging for Zenimax to incorporate them in the UK.
Any particular reason the EU needs to approve it since it's an American company? Or is it because some of the devs are European based like Arkane and MachineGames??
Strange. Seems like everyone looks the other way when Tencent buys a company. I'm sure they will gobble up nintendo and sony eventually.
Essay Pro