The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved Microsoft Bethesda purchase, which will bring the publisher and all of its studios into the Xbox family. It was one of the last remaining roadblocks to the acquisition finally closing, but Bethesda isn’t becoming part of Xbox just yet.
The SEC published a “notice of effectiveness” for the transaction on its website this week. If you’re not familiar with SEC filings, it doesn’t exactly mean much on the surface, but this notice is used when the SEC accepts a company’s registration. The “S-4” on the page means this is related to either a merger or an acquisition, and if you go to the related documents for this notice, it lists Microsoft’s registration amount as being $7.5 billion. This is the amount agreed upon during the deal last year.
The SEC’s approval actually comes as we were expecting to hear word from the European Commission, the other major regulatory body that could put a stop to this deal. It was scheduled to make a ruling by March 5, though it doesn’t appear to have made it public yet, assuming the ruling hasn’t been outright delayed. Assuming that is approved, it shouldn’t be too long before we see the companies working together officially.
That doesn’t mean PlayStation fans will be immediately left in the dust, however. The upcoming game Deathloop will actually launch as a PlayStation console exclusive, as the agreement was made prior to the Microsoft acquisition, and Microsoft is honoring that. It will be at least a year before the game comes to Xbox or other platforms. Future games are more up in the air, though it would certainly make sense for big franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Doom to become Microsoft-exclusive in order to draw in more players.
