Xbox Announces Bethesda Roundtable: What It Is And Why You Should Watch
Earlier this month, Microsoft more or less closed out its acquisition of ZeniMax Media after the merger gained approval from the European Commission. With that, Microsoft now owns ZeniMax and all of the studios that come along with it – most importantly Bethesda, the company behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout game franchises. We already have a good idea of what will come of this merger – more Xbox Game Pass games for one thing – but Bethesda and Microsoft are going to have a sit down to perhaps talk about what comes next.
This Roundtable, as it's called, will be broadcast later today on YouTube. You can watch it via the video embedded below, which is set to go live at 10 AM PT/1 PM ET. On Twitter, general manager of Xbox games marketing at Microsoft Aaron Greenberg notes that this will not be focused on news and reveals, so we're not really sure what to expect out of today's Roundtable.
The description on that YouTube video says that this will be "A conversation with key leaders celebrating Bethesda joining Team Xbox." We imagine that the companies will probably talk about how things may change at Bethesda following the acquisition and talk about their plans for Xbox Game Pass in the future. Microsoft previously indicated that new Bethesda games will be hitting Xbox Game Pass this week, but with Greenberg saying this conversation won't cover news, it seems we won't hear about what those are.
Join us this morning at 10am PST for a roundtable conversation between team members of @Xbox & @bethesda. Note, this is NOT FOCUSED ON NEWS/REVEALS, but a great chance to learn more about the teams & people at Bethesda. #BethesdaJoinsXbox https://t.co/0CsixjpLtz
— Aaron Greenberg (@aarongreenberg) March 11, 2021
Regardless, this is probably worth tuning into just because of how big this acquisition is. Microsoft is paying $7.5 billion to acquire ZeniMax and its subsidiaries, and turning a studio as big as Bethesda into a first-party company could be a big change for the games industry.
In any case, we'll let you know if anything of note is covered during this Bethesda Roundtable, but otherwise, we'll keep an eye out for more details about what happens now that ZeniMax and Bethesda are part of Xbox Game Studios. Stay tuned for more.