La European Commission officially approved the agreement of Microsoft products da 7,5 billion dollars for the acquisition of the company that owns the sagas of Doom, The Elder Scrolls and Fallout , Bethesda Softworks. Microsoft's agreement was approved by the EU without conditions, as it "does not raise serious doubts as to its compatibility with the common market". The acquisition required EU approval for Microsoft to finalize the Bethesda deal and thus bring new titles to Xbox Series XS, and on the subscription service Xbox Game Pass. At this point the games are done, and there is only an official announcement from Microsoft, which could arrive immediately or during the post-acquisition event confirmed by Jeff Grubb.
Once the deal is concluded, Microsoft's list of proprietary studios will rise to 23, following the addition of Bethesda's secondary teams, such as the developer of Dishonored, Arkane, the study of Wolfenstein, MachineGames, the manufacturer of Doom, Id Software, and the software house behind it The Evil Within, Tango Gameworks. However, the company seems willing to leave autonomy to the studies acquired. This approach appears to have worked for Mojang, LinkedIn and GitHub, which continued to act separately after their acquisition. Microsoft originally announced its plans to acquire Bethesda as early as September, promising to honor the commitments Bethesda had made, such as the exclusive release for PlayStation 5 di Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo. Even games like The Elder Scrolls: Online "Will continue to be supported according to the original plans." The way in which Microsoft will manage future Bethesda titles, in fact, will depend "on a case-by-case basis", as stated by the same Phil Spencer. It is not yet clear, however, how the company has decided to manage the imminent release of Starfield.
Microsoft, however, may also have chosen not to launch future Bethesda games exclusively on Xbox: it may in fact choose to have them in exclusive time on the Pass, so as to entice new users to subscribe to the service. So we just have to wait a few more months to officially find out how Phil Spencer and Xbox will choose to manage this incredible multi-billion dollar deal.
