Microsoft expands into gaming with Zenimax for 7.5 billion

The Redmond giant buys the group that owns Bethesda developers. An operation that puts it at the center of the rich video game market

(Photo by Jeenah Moon / Getty Images) After the agreement for the acquisition of the American operations of TikTok in the United States, Microsoft is betting on other services and one of the most important operations in the videogame sector. The Redmond company announced that it has closed for $ 7.5 billion the acquisition of the company ZeniMax Media, one of the world's leading video game developers and owner of several manufacturers, such as id Software or Bethesda Softworks.

With this transaction, one of the richest of recent times in the gaming sector, Microsoft guarantees a respectable place in a market that is estimated to reach a total value of over 200 billion dollars in revenues every year globally. Moreover, a sector in which Microsoft already has a firm footing thanks to the Xbox division, which in August 2020 saw the overall sales of the Xbox one alone reach 48.2 million units, as stated in Statista.

And for Xbox users, the announcement of this acquisition is great news. Thanks to the new agreements, the library of games accessible with the Xbox Game Pass subscription cloud-gaming service, which allows multiplayer options even on PCs and other devices, increases the numerous titles made by Bethesda studios, such as The Elder Scrolls or Fallout, among the most known and appreciated by the community globally.

Microsoft will expand its creative studios from 15 to 23, which will employ over 2,300 people worldwide, and with the new library of games available on its Xbox platform, it aims to further grow subscribers to the Xbox Game Pass service, which currently has more than 15 million users. In addition, as the CEO of the Redmond giant, Satya Nadella, states, “Bethesda has experienced great success in all categories of games, and together we will grow our ambition to give more and more opportunities to the more than three billion gamers in all. the world ”.

With this move, Microsoft once again reaffirms the importance of the gaming sector for its balance sheets. In 2019 alone, gaming has seen an increase of 10% over the previous year, with revenues increased by over a billion dollars. And certainly the acquisition of ZeniMax Media represents a remarkable ace in the hole also for the competition in the console market, especially on the eve of the launch of the new Xbox Series X, scheduled for November and which will have to compete for the square with the rival PlayStation 5, which Sony will presumably release in the same days.

The acquisition agreement, once the terms are approved by the parties involved, is expected to close by the first half of 2021.