Perusing the document filings that Microsoft provided to the European Competition Committee we can see a little more detail as to how the integration of Zenimax into Microsoft will work.
Now, you might read the above and think “Vault?” That’s a Fallout reference! Thankfully, we decided to check in with our favourite gaming and law expert, Richard Hoeg (@HoegLaw) for an explanation:
He pointed out that this process is purely technical:
MS drops down a subsidiary, and then that subsidiary is merged into Zenimax. End result is that MS owns the subsidiary which is now named Zenimax. “Vault” is just a vehicle for the merger. We call this a reverse triangular merger – usually you’d see the vehicle more obviously named. Most lawyers would call it Zenimax Merger Sub or similar.
In short, you do it this way if you want Zenimax to survive as a separate entity (at least for a time).
Richard Hoeg (@HoegLaw) / Twitter
If you want to read more about reverse triangular mergers (you do you) then head here and read up.
This is effectively what Phil Spencer and co said they were going to do – Zenimax will operate independently from Microsoft – at least for the time being.
Everyone’s favourite secret squirrel – Klobrille – made a helpful graphic to display this in an easy to see approach to first party integrations.
We assume this would mean that Xbox will keep all of Zenimax together, and by extension – the teams in both the publishing side of Zenimax, in addition to the folks in QA and marketing teams. This makes horizontal movement and growth possible between both entities as well.
While the deals not done yet, it’s close. Either way, the future for Xbox Game Studios looks very bright indeed.
As always, stay tuned to XboxEra for everything on Xbox.
