Microsoft offers itself "Fallout" and "Elder Scrolls" in a crazy transaction

Bethesda owns the “The Elder Scrolls”, “Fallout” and “Rage” franchises.

-

It's the deal of the century in the video game world.

On Monday, Microsoft announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, the publisher behind the planetary successes

and

, but also

,

and

, for 7.5 billion. of dollars.

A coup for the American company in the war of exclusives against Sony, two months before the release of the Xbox series X and the Playstation 5.

Today we announced @Bethesda is joining the Microsoft @Xbox family and I wanted to share some thoughts on what it means for all of us.https: //t.co/o1JgXS8Scg pic.twitter.com/urEcP3c3KM

- Pete Hines (@DCDeacon) September 21, 2020

This is the second largest acquisition in the history of video games, behind the 8.6 billion paid by the Chinese Tencent to get its hands on Supercell (

) in 2016. It is three times more than the check made by Microsoft to buy Mojang (

) in 2014. For comparison in the world of entertainment, Disney had paid 4 billion dollars for Marvel in 2009 and the same for Lucasfilm in 2012.

The two excluded Playstation honored, the continuation "on a case by case" basis

Of course, the $ 7 billion question is: Will future Bethesda games become Xbox / PC exclusives, depriving Sony or Nintendo consoles of franchises that gamers love?

It will depend on Microsoft's strategy, as the Xbox One has suffered from its lack of exclusion from the PS4.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Xbox division boss Phil Spencer indicated that the two

and

titles

announced as temporary Playstation exclusives would remain so.

For the rest (

and

, in particular), it will be "case by case".

Still on Bloomberg, Microsoft's chief executive Satya Nadella, however, said the company wanted its content "to be as widely available".

This is sometimes forgotten because Sony has often dominated the console war, but Microsoft is 15 times bigger than its Japanese competitor, with a market capitalization of 1.5 trillion dollars and 130 billion in cash available in the last quarter.

And this time, Microsoft has decided to put its weight in the battle.

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The Playstation 5 launched on November 19 in France at 499 euros, with games at a high price

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