After experimenting with paid DLC for its first-party titles on the original Xbox, Microsoft planned to launch the Xbox 360 with a storefront populated by the newfangled "microtransaction.""
"According to USGamer, Bethesda was the first third-party publisher to accept Microsoft's idea, offering a pack of in-game horse armor for Oblivion players at a $2.50 price point."
From https://screenrant.com/oblivion-horse-armor-dlc-controversy-explained/, but you can find other sources.
Bethesda did not instigate micro-transactions as you admitted yourself. You have then added a link to an article about the "horse armor debacle", but I already acknowledged that it wasn't a good move, the point is they were not the first and it was one dlc that cost a couple of quid. Here we have a game that has been absolutely butchered to justify its release and yet many are claiming it to be all gravy while running through their memory banks, looking for anything done by other companies in the past that could be used to divert attention away from CP2077. Strangely enough, when unfavourable comparisons are made between this and other games or CDPR and other companies, they are brushed aside as not being relevant....