Microsoft’s recent $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda definitely raised eyebrows in the industry. Players expect future Bethesda games to have some exclusivity on Xbox platforms and PC going forward and Microsoft has suggested that could be the case. Xbox CFO Tim Stuart elaborates on future Bethesda games being “first or better or best” on their platforms:
Yes. The goal here is, we’re—I’ll say it from a cross-platform perspective. Microsoft is a platform. We’re one of the first to really support Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite across platforms. So we highly encourage cross-platform play, simply from this landscape of, if it’s good for the gaming ecosystem, it’s good for us, classic rising tide lifts all boats.
What we’ll do in the long run is, we don’t have intentions of just pulling all of Bethesda content out of Sony or Nintendo or otherwise. But what we want is, we want that content, in the long run, to be either first or better or best or pick your differentiated experience, on our platforms. We will want Bethesda content to show up the best as—on our platforms.
Yes. That’s not a point about being exclusive. That’s not a point about we’re being—adjusting timing or content or road map. But if you think about something like Game Pass, if it shows up best in Game Pass, that’s what we want to see, and we want to drive our Game Pass subscriber base through that Bethesda pipeline.
So again, I’m not announcing pulling content from platforms one way or the other. But I suspect you’ll continue to see us shift towards a first or better or best approach on our platforms.
Its not surprising that Xbox wants to prioritize Bethesda games on their platforms but this won’t come to fruition for a while. Games like Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo are still exclusive to Sony and Xbox won’t have those as true exclusives. Stay tuned at Final Weapon for the latest gaming news and updates!
