EUR-Lex: Zenimax pathway to acquisition made clear. (Relevant documentation available)

I literally have no idea why anyone is discussing exclusivity since NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING to do with the details emerging on this merger has anything whatsoever to do with the release platforms for future titles.

Its infuriating how people try to read into the process something that simply isn’t there.

We’ve known from the start that Zenimax was being preserved as an entity - the reason you do this is probably because you’ve done a deal to protect jobs at least initially - if you roll Zenimax a publisher under XGS studios another publisher you’ve created a lot of rendundancy of roles, leading to redundancies. Keeping them separate entities protects those roles initially. This was almost certainly baked into the deal.

The other reason for this usually is simply to protect the branding and rights to the brand.

This has absolutely zero bearing on whether Xbox decide that Bethesda/Zenimax games are cross-platform published or not. Its completely and utterly irrelevant. As I should point out it would be if they were folding Zenimax directly into XGS - it would make ZERO difference and offer zero indication as to whether games would come out on the Switch or the PS5 or not.

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Exactly. This is a response to the fear that Ms buying publishers would be bad because of the massive number of layoffs that would occur due to redundancy.

The answer is that they will embrace the redundancy and let the publisher operate internally as it always has (which does not mean the publisher has the ultimate decision in the platform and business decisions on their games), ensuring they can acquire multiple publishers.

It’s exactly how Disney handled their acquisitions, and while each arm remained independent, we also saw how they all aligned to Disney goals. There’s no reason to expect anything different from this or any other publisher Ms acquires

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I have a question about the ‘Vault’ thing.

XGS has 15 studios (and it’s probably a lot to manage for Matt Booty). Zenimax-Bethesda will be 8 (managed by Pete Hines I guess).

Could we see in the future possible acquisitions (that aren’t publishers) acquired by the Bethesda arm itself (and these studios would join the Bethesda arm instead of the XGS arm) ? Like when Saber (and by extension Embracer) acquired themselves 4A Games ?

Or like with Take Two when Rockstar Games (the publisher), and not the other publishers like 2K or Private Division, acquired Ruffian Games (rebranded Rockstar Dundee).

Don’t know if it makes sense.

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yeah for sure, though to be clear it would still be microsoft signing the checks as it were, but the acquired studio would just be under the management structure of zenimax

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Yes, of course, and this is the best way forward if Microsoft wants to have many studios in the future because one person like Matt Booty does not have time to run all the studios and make sure they work well.

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At least it’s moving forward!

I’m not a huge fan of separate entities, I would prefer if it was all Xbox Game Studios. They could still be sub-divisions within XGS with regards to leadership structure and Matt Bootys workload.

True, but it sounds like there otherwise would have been layoffs, so this sounds like the better decision then.

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Yes, if that’s the case this is better for sure. I just hope they will be seen as one Xbox-division and not separate things. I think that would also be better from a PR-standpoint, avoid the confusion so to speak.

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More importantly the guarantee of every Bethesda game on xbox!

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It’s becoming more and more like embracer at this point lol. They have several publishers under them now like Deep silver, Gearbox, THQ Nordic, etc

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True too!

Let Xbox buy SE too, so that this FF nonsense can’t ever happen again, lol.

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Slightly off topic, but, it’s extremely refreshing to see a news outlet that when confronted with information that could be misconstrued easily takes the time to consult with those in the know before publishing an article instead of using the uncertainty to produce concern clicks. I know where I’m going first up for my xbox news from now on. Keep up the good work guys.

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I agree. Sony are agressive with exclusive content and they are considered the best first party in the industry at the moment. Putting XGS games on PS5 does not further Microsofts goals, it only strengthens the PS5 even if these games are day1 on gamepass.

Exclusivity strengthens the Xbox platform which us what Microsoft want.

Im not sure what will happen though, people at xbox may think and calculate that gamepass exclusivity is enough, but I don’t think it is. Its all about the brand and exclusivity strengthens and identifies the brand very well.

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Absolutely. This also shows there is incentive for MS to buy another publisher. Booty is a very busy man deep in execution mode. Just buy Zenimax, Paradox, etc., let them be unless absolutely necessary, share IP and tech and have exclusivity.

100% yes.

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Aaron just posted this

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Is Sony a ‘relevant 3rd party’? They will object.

It is in their interest no to do that, otherwise MS might do the same the moment Sony wants to make a big acquisition.

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A company that is in first place in terms of the console market in the EU objecting to the acquisition by the company in a very distant 3rd place would honestly be funny to see.

Sure they have the option to object, but I am not sure on what valid basis.

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The console market is irrelevant here. This is about games development and publishing. You can’t object on the basis of another part of the business. So any objection would need to show MS getting an unfair competitive advantage in publishing or development. Not in hardware sales that aren’t in any way linked to this. They aren’t close to having a monopoly on publishers or developers not close.