Breaking: Microsoft purchasing Zenimax for $7.5 billion.

[stroopwafel]

Pretty sure they bought them so all those studios can make crap for Gamepass. That subscription model is much more lucrative than AAA game development. The business side is really all ever microsoft cared about. Why have they not put a fraction of those billions into actual game development? Why sleep on an entire generation? Why buy an entire parent company wholesale? Most likely it is to consolidate a constant influx of mediocre content for their subscription service. Pretty sure they can market this acquisition as a pretty big push for Gamepass, even if AAA game development is completely unsustainable on a subscription service. But ofcourse regular low quality content isn't.

 

[Shadyside]

They are going to do the timed exclusive thing like Sony does.

 

[Tireseas]

Microsoft recently seems to be moving away from having their own game store, so hopefully they'll tell bethesda to stop with theirs. That's pretty much the only positive I could see from this.

No, the MS games store is stronger than ever (the MS store is preinstalled with Windows) if still fairly clunky. I've had Game Pass Ultimate for a year and change now and while it took a while to figure out how to best use it, I've found it worth the price overall. I think the bigger customer gains for it are for people who are on the fence about buying mid tier titles as you can afford to try the mid-tier games (think Battlefleet Gothic II, Frostpunk, Stellaris, or Two Point Hospital) without breaking the bank or waiting for a steam sale. I think I earn back my subscription within about four months. It's also common for AAA titles to have a run on the service within a few years if they're third party (both Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are on it now). They're definitely moving away from XBox as just the hardware and more into XBox as the Microsoft Gaming service on all platforms (Remember the short lived "Windows Gaming" brand?).

As for what it means for Bethesda, it's unclear. Fallout 76 was a sandbox MMO without a clear plot (or even play path) or motivation and suffered for it despite a solid enough gameplay loop and mechanics (played it on and off for a year when a brother gave it to me for Christmas). Wolfenstein has been steadily getting worse mechanically (though 2's plot is a solid conclusion to 1). Dishonored has no projects in development as far as anyone can tell. Prey is very much a standalone game (though they may just do what they did with the last game and make a new scifi game and slap the name on it). Starfield hasn't had even a news story about the game in 2 years. The Elder Scrolls continues to hum along and Doom remains a fun arcade shooter. I can see why MS bought the company (every major franchise has enjoyed some level of major success) and I suspect they might send some concepts or new IPs through Bethesda so that they have a better shot than some of MS's other studios, but this is largely speculation.

 

[Worgen]

Well, this could only make fallout and elder scrolls less buggy.

 

[Worgen]

No, the MS games store is stronger than ever (the MS store is preinstalled with Windows) if still fairly clunky. I've had Game Pass Ultimate for a year and change now and while it took a while to figure out how to best use it, I've found it worth the price overall. I think the bigger customer gains for it are for people who are on the fence about buying mid tier titles as you can afford to try the mid-tier games (think Battlefleet Gothic II, Frostpunk, Stellaris, or Two Point Hospital) without breaking the bank or waiting for a steam sale. I think I earn back my subscription within about four months. It's also common for AAA titles to have a run on the service within a few years if they're third party (both Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption 2 are on it now). They're definitely moving away from XBox as just the hardware and more into XBox as the Microsoft Gaming service on all platforms (Remember the short lived "Windows Gaming" brand?).

It might be going stronger than ever but they have also been putting out their games on steam to pretty great success. Like the Halo Master Chief Collection has sold at least 5 million copies.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Does this mean Elder Scrolls and Fallout will be Xbox exclusives next gen?

 

[meiam]

How did I not realize sooner, we might be getting Fallout4:new vegas now that obsidian and bethesda are under the same roof XD

 

[happyninja42]

This is wild. Hard to believe it was kept quiet until the deal was done. And to think that Disney "only" paid 4 billion for Star Wars.

Meh, they've already made that back off the trilogy I bet, and will make truck loads more money off turning vast portions of their parks into Star Wars themed stuff.

 

[FennecZephyr]

Welp, this deal certainly now makes me wanna buy an Xbox Series X if Elder Scrolls and Dooms are exclusive to Xbox.

They're gonna come out on PC, too. Relax.

 

[Tireseas]

It might be going stronger than ever but they have also been putting out their games on steam to pretty great success. Like the Halo Master Chief Collection has sold at least 5 million copies.

Oh yeah. I think we're moving away from exclusives overall, as between MS, Steam, and Epic Games Store you can often get the same game from each retailer (and can often access the game through each other's service even if you didn't buy through them). Consoles remain the last bastion for exclusives for the most part, and even then that's mostly certain PlayStation games and Nintendo first-party games.

 

[sXeth]

*glances at recent Bethesda output*


Well that certainly seems like an odd choice.


Just going franchise by franchisve here:

Dishonored > Solid. But Arkane's literally doing an announced playstation exclusive, unless part of that 7.5 billiion was to break that contract up.

Doom > Eternal has a mixed reception to be sure, though I'd say this is one of their healthier bits. Also I guess this also gets them the IDtEch engine (and Quake, I suppose, whatever thats doing nowadays)

Elder Scrolls > Hasn't put out a main installment in 9 years with the next one not even begun yet. Most recently remembered for a godawful mobile game thing.

Fallout > Well, 76. And 4 wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire before that.

Evil Within > Probably the only one that (from what I've heard) was on an upswing.

Wolfenstein > Reeling from episode 2 being a chopped half-game, and Youngblood just being awful all over.

Prey > Some folks liked it, but it didn't exactly push the dials commerically.



EDIT :

Oh yeah, Rage. The fact I had to remember to add RAge should prettymuch sum taht up.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

Can we please stop all this Russian nesting doll shenanigans in relation to companies owning companies owning companies that own companies? I know this is less "tech/video game" companies than it is a capitalist problem, but we are already scarily close to the shit end of the cyberpunk genre as it is without the whole "2-3 mega corporations own the planet" mess (though the cynical monkey that pulls the levers in my head tells me this is probably here now).

 

[Gergar12]

Well, I am getting a gameing desktop when Elders Scroll 6 releases, but it would suck if they excluded PS5 from their games.

 

[CastletonSnob]

Rare
Minecraft
Bungie
id
Bethesda

Where were you when Microsoft became the Disney of gaming?

 

[faeyr]

Meh, they've already made that back off the trilogy I bet, and will make truck loads more money off turning vast portions of their parks into Star Wars themed stuff.

That's what I was getting at. Microsoft paid almost double, so it's going to be interesting to see what their game plan is. I've put a ton of hours into Bethesda games, but never thought of them as being "Star Wars" level money makers. I guess we'll find out.

 

[Trunkage]

I think Arkane is great but they just haven't had major commercial success. Perhaps with some extra money they can make something extra special

But Zeminax gave them a long leash to develop what they wanted. I dont see Microsoft being the same

 

[happyninja42]

That's what I was getting at. Microsoft paid almost double, so it's going to be interesting to see what their game plan is. I've put a ton of hours into Bethesda games, but never thought of them as being "Star Wars" level money makers. I guess we'll find out.

Ok so I just did a VERY rough search of the various Bethesda titles, and used the lower end of the average of players using those titles as indicated by steam sales. Most of their big titles ranged from 5-10 million users, others were 1-2 million. I used the lower number, and came up with, on the low end, 38 million copies of their library sold, just on steam. And I was even more conservative and just gave their titles a blanket $40 US value, even though plenty of them were sold at $59.99, and the total money made, off those very rough, LOW numbers, is about 1.5 billion. Keep in mind, a LOT of their titles were in the 5-10 million sold range, and it was titles I know for a fact were $59.99 at release.

And that was just the front page of 3 pages of their titles released. I just redid the numbers, being way more optimistic, and used the higher values, and with roughly 85 million sales, on only steam, and using the full price number of $59.99, they made roughly $5 billion US. And that's not counting consoles.

Factor in the games that have an online store component, and other things, it seems fairly reasonable to me, that Bethesda has easily made that much money, if not more over the years.

So yeah, 7.5 billion on a company that you feel confident will continue to make games that sell? Yeah, doesn't surprise me at all.

Because as much as people get nearly sexual gratification from hating Bethesda for 76, they couldn't stop sucking their company dick for how much they loved DOOM 2016, and FO 4 sold MILLIONS of copies.

Bethesda know how to make games that a lot of people enjoy playing, and have been for many years. To call them shit because they really fucked up with one title that was vastly reviled, is frankly stupid. But hey, it's gamers we're talking about, so stupid flip-flopping of opinions and loyalty will happen all the time. Pretty much on a turnover time table equivalent to "the next time they release a game we like/hate."

 

[Casual Shinji]

I hope I won't have to buy an Xbox for this.

I mean, I'm interested enough in Elder Scrolls and Fallout for this to make me nervous that I might have to, but then I can't say Skyrim left that much of an impression on me, and Fallout 4 and 76 weren't exactly good. The rest of Bethesda's output leaves me cold.

It would be a huge 'fuck you' to Sony though if they decide to make all these games exclussive to Xbox (and PC).

 

[Dreiko]

I also heard that Sony is buying Konami, not sure how true that is but if they can revive all those franchises that Konami has wasting away it could also be a huge boon.

I wonder if TES6 will end up being xbox exclusive, that one would actually be something worth considering the system over haha.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

How did I not realize sooner, we might be getting Fallout4:new vegas now that obsidian and bethesda are under the same roof XD

Yeh, this is what I'm excited for. In fact how I was introduced to this happening since a friend told me due to that