Another step in Microsoft‘s acquisition of ZeniMax Media is one step closer to completion, as the buyout has been approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Once completed, this deal will put some of the biggest video game franchises of all time under the banner of Xbox Game Studios. 

It was revealed last year that Microsoft planned to buy ZeniMax Media. The intent was to acquire all of the studios that ZeniMax owned, including Arkane, Bethesda Softworks, and id Software. The deal will give Microsoft some major franchises in the future, as it will own Doom, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls, to name a few. After Microsoft’s announcement, the expectation was that a deal could take a long time to complete. The cost of this acquisition is $7.5 billion, which is almost double what Disney paid for Star Wars. 

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There were concerns that a lawsuit involving Fallout 4 could slow down Microsoft’s purchase of ZeniMax Media, but that no longer appears to be the case. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has confirmed that Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax has been approved by regulators, putting the deal a massive step closer to completion.

The acquisition still isn’t finished, however, as the deal needs to be approved by the European Commission before it’s completed. The provisional deadline for this review is today, so Microsoft should know about the European Commission’s decision soon. No complications are expected to arise and it’s looking likely that the deal will be completed as planned.

There are rumors that Microsoft has a big event planned for when the ZeniMax deal is finished. It’s rumored that new information about Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 is being saved for this event. The price tag for this acquisition is massive, but it’s going to do incredible things for the Xbox brand. Microsoft will soon have the power to turn Doom, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls into PC and Xbox exclusives. The Xbox brand has been lagging when it comes to exclusives and this is the exact boost that the line of systems needs in the current console generation. The Xbox Series X is going to look a lot more attractive if the brand new Elder Scrolls game and Starfield are free to Game Pass subscribers on day one. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft will go the exclusives route with more information likely to come as soon as the ZeniMax deal is finished.

Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

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Scott Baird
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Scott has been writing for Screen Rant since 2016 and regularly contributes to The Gamer. He has previously written articles and video scripts for websites like Cracked, Dorkly, Topless Robot, and TopTenz.
A graduate of Edge Hill University in the UK, Scott started out as a film student before moving into journalism. It turned out that wasting a childhood playing video games, reading comic books, and watching movies could be used for finding employment, regardless of what any career advisor might tell you. Scott specializes in gaming and has loved the medium since the early ‘90s when his first console was a ZX Spectrum that used to take 40 minutes to load a game from a tape cassette player to a black and white TV set. Scott now writes game reviews for Screen Rant and The Gamer, as well as news reports, opinion pieces, and game guides. He can be contacted on LinkedIn.

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