Kotaku: Is it possible to recoup a $7.5 billion investment if you don’t sell Elder Scrolls VI on the PlayStation?” I asked.
“Yes,” Spencer quickly replied.
Then he paused.
“I don’t want to be flip about that,” he added. “This deal was not done to take games away from another player base like that. Nowhere in the documentation that we put together was: ‘How do we keep other players from playing these games?’ We want more people to be able to play games, not fewer people to be able to go play games.
But I’ll also say in the model—I’m just answering directly the question that you had—when I think about where people are going to be playing and the number of devices that we had, and we have xCloud and PC and Game Pass and our console base, I don’t have to go ship those games on any other platform other than the platforms that we support in order to kind of make the deal work for us. Whatever that means.”
Yep, there it is. They are fully focused on making the Xbox ecosystem (Xbox consoles, PC, xCloud) on being the best place to play next generation. With the rapid growth of Xbox Game Pass we’ve seen (15M subscribers), they can definitely make back the money they spent on the acquisition. Some people are going to be in denial, but I think it’s quite obvious that from now on, future Bethesda games will be exclusively on the Xbox ecosystem.
Where does that leave the prospect of more Xbox games coming to non-Xbox consoles? Spencer told me that “it doesn’t feel sustainable” to consider Xbox games on a case by case basis for Switch and said, “In order to really support it, I would want a full Xbox ecosystem somewhere. And that probably means things like Live and Game Pass and stuff.”
He said something similar in July during an interview with GameStar, though the answer has changed slightly. Back then he said that “the other competitive platforms aren’t really that interested in having a full Xbox experience on their hardware.” I cited that answer to him and asked if it was still the case with Sony and Nintendo. “I don’t want to speak for them,” he said. “I think they should probably answer.”
This is smart. Put the onus on the other platforms for Game Pass not being on those platforms. MS is the good guy, offering the best value service in the industry to Sony and Nintendo gamers, but Sony/Nintendo are just not interested in giving their fans access to such great services. They would rather make them pay $70 per title over and over and not let them play Halo, Fallout, Doom, Elder Scrolls, etc.
Hoping Phil pushes more in this direction on the PR front. It’s utterly brilliant (bc I came up with it, of course!).
Many Sony fans have become wholly emotionally invested in the narrative that Xbox has no games, no exclusives, etc. The Bethesda deal shatters that argument unless PS5 gets them too. Then they can go back to pushing the narrative that Xbox has no exclusives.
I don’t think it will ever sink into some people that Zenimax games are never coming to the PS5, glad I don’t have to worry about it and will get all their games DAY ONE on gamepass.
Man…ResetEra is losing their minds:
“Whelp, guess I wont Play Starfield or Elderscrolls 6, should be good games”
“Guess I wont be able to play a Bethesda game any more”
This is the core of fanboyism. Even saw:
“Now Sony should buy Capcom in retaliation”
And youy know what? If that EVER happened, id buy a PS5 right away to play their games. Like…people say they have been HUGE fans and love the series that was produced but are willing to give it up…just like that. Sorry if this de-railed but aint NOTHING stopping me from playing games that I love.
This strategy makes a lot of sense. Xbox is making it very easy to get into their ecosystem. If you have a PC, you can get Game Pass for PC. If you don’t have an Xbox or PC, you can get an Xbox Series S for the low price of $299. Alternatively, you can get Xbox All Access for $24.99 and get an Xbox Series alongside hundreds of games with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. I think they should make an option for a separate subscription just for xCloud, it’ll make it even easier to be part of the Xbox ecosystem, all you need is a phone.
It’s funny cause they don’t ACT like gamers at all, to them not being on a Sony platform is some un breakable barrier and like the games do not exist for them.
With Xcloud, Gamepass, Series S, All access it is easier and cheaper then ever to play games in the Xbox eco system. To them though that is something dirty that they cannot lower themselves to do.
Expected, but very interesting about the switch part of interview, and not going case by case there. I think Microsoft def needs to keep these games on their ecosystem because it’s how you will grow it. Anyways whether it was exclusive or not didn’t matter to me since day one gamepass
Exclusive to the Xbox eco-system just like I have been saying since September 21st. Gee, what a shock. Some people out there think Microsoft/Nadella/Spencer are still fucking around. They’re NOT.
