Will we ever receive actual clarification on whether or not Bethesda titles beyond Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo will come to PlayStation 5? Probably not for a couple of years at least if the continually vague statements coming out of the publisher are anything to go by. In a new interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Todd Howard discusses the topic of exclusivity by saying it "is hard to imagine" The Elder Scrolls VI being restricted to Microsoft's consoles and any platform hosting Game Pass capabilities.
Without making any commitments, though, Howard does go on to explain how Bethesda has made a number of exclusivity deals in the past. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind never came to PlayStation 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was exclusive to Xbox 360 for a full year, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has timed-exclusive DLC. "I can't really project where things will be except to say we've done those sort of exercises ourselves as an independent. If you look at every Elder Scrolls game, there has been some exclusivity on Xbox or with Microsoft."
So, is the situation any clearer? Absolutely not, but Howard does love to bring up the continued relationship Microsoft has held with Bethesda over the decades. That partnership is now even stronger, although as of right now, we still have little in the way of confirmation that the publisher's titles won't eventually come to PS5.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 48
Todd Howard has no say in the matter anymore.
How I see it,!
I don't think it'd be exclusive honestly. Definitely some other new IPs would be. But it's still worrying if those new exclusives turn out to be great.
"That partnership is now even stronger..."
They bought them.
@Ridwaano
"Hard to imagine". I find it "hard to imagine" Microsoft spending $7 billion and then giving the games to its main competition. If Sony suddenly bought GTA I wouldn't expect it to ship on Xbox...
There will be riots in the streets!
Those prior examples of exclusivity are fairly circumstantial though. Morrowind being straight up not possible on PS2 without a complete redo, the PS3 not being released until almost a year after Oblivion first released, and Skyrim's PS3 port being so busted they had to fix the base game before thinking about DLC. I don't think there was any deals made with those.
That being said, it doesn't change the fact that Elder Scrolls (and Bethesda in general) has always had a stronger association with the green team. Even with this soon to be last gen, Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE had stronger mod support on Xbox than PS4. There's always been somewhat of a compromised experience on Playstation.
1. It's not up to Todd after Microsoft own the company.
2. People can skirt the wording "hard to imagine being exclusive" because it will release on PC as well since that's not an exclusive.
@Total_Weirdo I prefer they add the actual games, but they should be xbox exclusives unless Phil wants its consoles sales to fail miserably.
All lip service imo. Whatever Uncle Phil says after spending 7.5 billy is going to be what happens. Tbh I'd actually be surprised if it's not Xbox exclusive.
If they were exclusive they’d just say. Clear to me they will be Gamepass subscription exclusive, but sold full price on Xbox, pc and ps5 too. MS are only interested in making Gamepass a priority.
I think the best we can hope for is that its an Xbox exclusive for "only" one year.
We won't get any straight answers until the acquisition is finalized at minimum. It would be illegal for MS to start mandating how things will be operated before things are finalized.
Technically, if ES6 was finished and released tomorrow out of the blue, MS could not do anything to prevent it from going to all platforms.
My money is that should the sale be finalized in a few months, as expected, the games will all become exclusive to windows and Xbox.
It will be vague until a decent number of those consumers sitting on the fence over which console they wish to buy have put money down on an xbox and game pass and are tied into the ecosystem. Only then will we get straight answers. Just how business works
People are assuming ES VI is finished before the PS6 launches.
Cyberpunk has GONE GOLD and they still can't get it released.
If xbox users play elder scrolls 6 for "free" with gamepass, it's up to pc gamers to make elder scrolls 6 profitable if there's no ps5 version. I think that's hard to do unless the game has a lot of mtx like mobile games.
@thefourfoldroot They can’t say anything right now. MS has not bought Bethesda yet, they can’t start making public statements about their plans until the sale is final.
Todd is probably being cautious as "Gamer" Phil Spencer recently pointed out, until it gets rubber stamped by various U.S. regulatory authorities M$ don't officially own them yet-they've just made an agreement of sale.
But Gamer Phil made it pretty clear in his own recent interview, these studios, (once their agreements elsewhere are fufilled) will be exclusive. Doesn't really matter what bethesda claim otherwise.
Microsoft massively overpaid for Bethesda (remember Lucasfilm with the Star Wars franchise only cost $4billion), they will not make the money back from keeping it exclusive. They either write off a lot of money from this or sell it where they can like Skyrim.
History dictates they will whore ES6 out to all comers like Skyrim.
Honestly, the back and forth on whether Beth games will still come to PS5 is really getting exhausting.
Unless Bethesda create a new 'Creation' engine, they can keep the game exclusive to themselves. Only thanks to modders that there fallout and elder scrolls are 'reasonably' stable and playable. And modding doesn't usually come for a year or 2 after.
I think they'll advertise the games as "Xbox Console Exclusive" and see how what impact that has on console sales and gamepass subscriptions - if it's a substantial number then they'll stay exclusive, if not they'll release them on PS5 12-18 months later and say they were "timed exclusives"
I expect I will end up with an Xbox eventually, mainly for game pass, but if I don't then I'm expecting a generation without any Bethesda games. Just googled list of Bethesda games I'd have missed out of this gen:
Dishonored (couldn't get past an hour of this)
Doom (fun but only managed a few hours)
Fallout 4 (enjoyed this but not interested in a Fallout 5)
Prey (in my backlog)
Wolfenstein (noooo.....I love these games. Will definitely miss these)
Maybe I will need an Xbox. I personally can't see why people would jump over to MS as the list of games I would have missed out on PS4 far outweighs this list but there will definitely be a Bethesda hole this upcoming gen....
Sure, he has no say, but he also would have been in the talks and have some decent ideas and a feel of the situation from that. I'm not even going to judge it one way or the other at this point.
I feel like the people thinking that TESVI showing up on other platforms still need to kind of grasp in their head that Dragonborn, DOOM Slayer and all the other Bethesda characters are now MICROSOFT characters. Not just Bethesda characters anymore. It's like when people referred to Banjo as a Nintendo character back then but people are used to calling him a Microsoft character now. Like if there was some big Microsoft crossover game, it would have Banjo, next to Master Chief, next to Dohvakiin, next to a Battletoad and Fulgore, next to DOOM Slayer. They're not Bethesda characters anymore. The Elder Scrolls from here on out, is a Microsoft IP. Not a second party thing like MonolithSoft with Xenoblade or Square with Final Fantasy on Nintendo/PlayStation. They're literally just Xbox characters now, so why would they show up anywhere else?
@Medic_Alert Keep on pretending to yourself they can make the $9 billion they have to make from this deal.
It took Disney over six years to make back their money but I am sure that Microsoft will make back twice that amount in a year or two won't they?
@john_c I think they're totally capable of making all the money back honestly. Even if you're on PC or Game Pass you're still going to end up giving them the money to play those games, and when an average console gamer who doesn't care about those platforms sees that a franchise as big as Elder Scrolls is now Xbox exclusive and that TESVI will be only on Xbox just as Morrowind was back then, it would definitely attract a lot of attention.
@wiiware Considering what PC did for Skyrim, it's a very likely situation. Mods carried Skyrim for years and millions if sales.
Todd also told us Fallout 76 wasn't an MMO and was still a single player game at heart. Does Todd saying anything mean much of anything to anyone at this point?
Of course it won't be XBox exclusive. It'll also be streamed on Switch 3!
@wiiware But it would also be "free" on PC Game Pass..... Of course that's not "free" it's $120/yr.... which is actually pricier than a TES: Online subscription....
@john_c Zenimax is also an MMO kingpin with a ton of recurring revenues of their own. Buying Bethesda also means immediate acquisition of the MMO revenue streams and is a part of why their purchase price was so huge - it comes with recurring revnue built into the sale, with a high net. That alone pays for itself over time even if absolutely nothing else is sold.
@TheFrenchiestFry I am sorry I do not agree with you on this one. Time will tell of course but there is no way I can see it happening.
As I have said Microsoft may consider taking a hit on this deal in order to make Gamepass successful but they will lose money on this deal. They do have the money to lose though.
Supermarkets call this loss leaders
Todd is losing his marbles the last few years. It won’t be Xbox exclusive, but it won’t be on PS5 either. Xbox and PC for sure.
Zenimax's annual revenue in 2018 was $106.15 million which would take 70 years to hit the 7.5 billion that Microsoft paid for it.
@john_c Microsoft don’t need to make 9 billion back off of this deal. They can absorb the cost while expanding the gamepass brand, that’s their aim. Gamepass already makes them around 2 billion a year, with Bethesda acquired more subscribers will join and that’ll only go up.
Interesting thing though just two days ago Phil Spencer said he wants to brings Gamepass to both Sony and Nintendo. It could be that you could get all MS games on Sony if Sony agrees.
Bethesda may the bargaining chip
@john_c Hard to compare Microsoft and Disney as Microsoft is a much larger company. Their net income from the last quarter was more than Disney's entire 2018 fiscal year. Satya has made it clear the company is focused on subscriptions and software. Turn and burn is no longer the gameplan.
Thanks for the sweet little lies Todd.
@RedShirtRod Which is why I think MS will happily sell GP subs on PS5. I also think they will not make another console if they can get away from it.
The future is owning rights not console exclusives - especially when consoles are loss making.
@NEStalgia Somehow I forgot I already have pc gamepass lol. That $120 peryear is divided by many games though, not only one game.
@john_c Microsoft won't stop making consoles even if they don't sell to consumers, because Xbox is also their xCloud server. If xCloud takes of (and it already is taking off extremely well in markets like Korea) MS won't care if they sell 10% as many xboxes as Sony sells play stations. They will continue to make the hardware.
That apart, they already said they would require things like Xbox live (multi-player, achievements, cloud saves,) on any platform they take GamePass to. I doubt Sony will allow Xbox live on PlayStation consoles.
@pip_muzz "Giving" no. Charging PS5 owners $70 where Game Pass Members get it as part of their subscription on PC or Xbox (or both), absolutely.
Microsoft isn't giving anyone anything. It is charging for it.
@john_c Saying he's open to the idea, and saying that he actually wants to push for it are two different things. He didn't actually say he was going to push for it to appear on those consoles, just that he entertained the possibility.
After reading that interview it's clear to me that Todd has had a healthy dose of corporate Kool-Aid. He makes several statements about how subscription systems are better for devs and gamers, but his logic is pretty flimsy and ignores the real reason why so many industries are going toward a subscription model - they provide consistent, reliable, and predictable income for shareholders. Microsoft doesn't like telling investors it expects X game to sell X copies, and they look bad when Crackdown 3 sucks and sells poorly. With subscriptions they can pretend all games are homogenous blobs and "we don't really know why people are or aren't subscribing, but here are the stats."
If Todd doesn't realize that subscription/ongoing business models are likely to impact the quality of games he has no further to look than his own studio and Fallout 76.
@get2sammyb come on Does anyone believe anything todd says anymore
@john_c Hard to say if Sony would play ball. The GP and Apple battle has shown that Microsoft doesn't give that natural 30% cut for items on GP. Not sure Sony would ever agree to those terms.
Let’s assume it won’t be coming to PS5.
I guess we will see when this game launches in 2035 to see if it will be on the PS7
If they can't really start talking about this until the deal is made official next year, it's ridiculous to keep asking these questions. I used to work in journalism, I know how it goes, but it's just silly at this point because it's going to keep being the same non-answer.
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