Microsoft will pay $7.5 billion to acquire the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, the company behind The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Wolfenstein, DOOM, and other top video game franchises, including the upcoming Starfield space role-playing game.

The acquisition of ZeniMax Media, announced Monday morning, would tie with GitHub as the third-largest deal in Microsoft’s history by acquisition price, behind only LinkedIn and Skype. The purchase price is three times what Microsoft paid in 2015 for Mojang, the company behind the Minecraft franchise.

Based in Rockville, Md., ZeniMax employs 2,300 people. Microsoft says it will expand from 15 to 23 internal game development studios with the acquisition. The acquisition is slated to close in the second half of Microsoft’s fiscal 2021, which is the first half of the 2021 calendar year. The company says the all-cash deal will “have minimal impact to non-GAAP operating income in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.”

For Microsoft, the deal also answers the question of what the company will acquire after its talks to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations fell through. Oracle and Walmart received approval from the Trump administration to take a minority stake in the hit social video app over the weekend.

The deal shows that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella “continues to remain laser focused on growing the consumer side of the house, while the flagship enterprise/cloud Azure and Office 365 business is humming along at an accelerated growth pace,” said Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives in a note Monday morning, calling it “a smart and strategic move.”

“While Microsoft is firmly well entrenched on the cloud front which is a two horse race with AWS, its consumer strategy has been on a treadmill as heavily tied to the mature PC/Windows environment,” Ives writes. “While Xbox and gaming have been successful, MSFT recognizes its need for consumer based revenue growth which we believe this deal will directly help drive along.”

Microsoft says it plans to add Bethesda’s classic franchises to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service for consoles and PCs, and says future games including Starfield will be available on Xbox Game Pass on launch day. As part of the announcement, Microsoft said Game Pass has surpassed 15 million subscribers, up from 10 million in April.

The deal comes as Microsoft’s Xbox team gears up to launch its next-generation Xbox Series X and S consoles, going head-to-head with Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 5. As a third-party developer, Bethesda has typically published games across platforms including PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.

Bethesda has two studios working on upcoming titles slated to be released first on Sony consoles. Microsoft will honor those commitments to the Sony console, but will evaluate the cross-platform availability of future games on a “case-by-case basis,” said Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, in an interview with Bloomberg News.

In a blog post, Spencer called the acquisition a “landmark step” for Xbox and its community.

“Like us, Bethesda are passionate believers in building a diverse array of creative experiences, in exploring new game franchises, and in telling stories in bold ways,” he wrote. “All of their great work will of course continue and grow and we look forward to empowering them with the resources and support of Microsoft to scale their creative visions to more players in new ways for you.”

Microsoft says Bethesda’s “structure and leadership will remain in place.” The company was founded in 1999 by Robert Altman, its CEO and chairman.

“So why the change? Because it allows us to make even better games going forward,” says Bethesda in a message on its site. “Microsoft is an incredible partner and offers access to resources that will make us a better publisher and developer.”

Updated at 10:20 a.m. with Spencer’s comments to Bloomberg News about future cross-platform and exclusive games. Chart corrected to reflect that aQuantive was acquired in 2007.

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