I say make the event exclusively viewable on Xbox just to make a point lol
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They better be.
If not, there are no reasons to not launch all their first party games on Playstation and Nintendo.
And if MS want their games everywhere ( Playstation and Nintendo ), just kill Xbox HW division and move on.
More people playing more games, with more options is great.
But, at same time, Sony and Nintendo will never release their games on Xbox.
So Xbox consoles become irrelevant, to say the least.
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Yeah, its a similar situation where if you want to play street fighter v you had to get a PS4. If Microsoft endgame is gamepass then they will need exclusive content to make players on other platforms get an xbox or pc to subscribe. It will be a strong stance to stop this while conversation if games like wolfenstein and starfield are exclusive to xbox
I think its mainly down to insecure sony fans, because deep down they know the Bethesda acquisition is enough to knock playstation off the top the hill.
Elder scrolls 6 do it
Exclusive to Games Pass 
I think people might be looking at this from the wrong angle. Instead of thinking from a buying a console for exclusives angle, think about it from the developer’s angle. If you are a developer who do you release games for? The company that wants you tied to their console only, or the company that will let you release your game wherever you want? MS wants developers to come to them first to make a deal and what better way to say “we aren’t locking you down” than to have some of their own games not be locked down? Once they are in the door, full exclusivity can still be on the table nothing is stopping that.
Those that site Sony still moneyhatting exclusives haven’t noticed that Sony is slowly losing their “exclusives” way of doing business and are now forced to use those tactics more. First of all their console design is more PC port friendly. They have abandoned their esoteric (PS3) design philosophy which had the purpose of locking developers into their platform through the game engine, tools, etc… Second Sony themselves are releasing their games on PC somewhat. Third, Sony is making deals with developers without taking ownership of the IP. Fourth, more Japanese developers are embracing PC (and Nintendo) now. How many important third party exclusives does Sony have that aren’t moneyhatted? Sony has been slowly losing their grip on the industry as a whole.
MS may not be winning the sales war, but they are definitely accomplishing what they set out to do. MS was never in this to beat Sony at selling hardware. MS goal was to stop the idea of Sony = Gaming from becoming widespread. Yes they do want to sell hardware and subscriptions, but what they want most is to be involved in all aspects of gaming. Take ID-Tech engine for example. Don’t think MS might want to license that out? Well it’s going to need to be Playstation friendly also.
Sony is still working the games as a loss leader to get you into the store/ecosystem so you spend with them. MS does that too, but when they have a game that has the potential to be profitable on it’s own, they very well may go for it. MS is never going to shake the “well I’ll just play that on PC” stigma, so why not embrace it a little?
Now I am not saying MS should become third party, or MS shouldn’t make Bethesda games 100% exclusives. I’m just saying I’m seeing another angle MS is working here that people may not be seeing, look at MS with open source, working with Apple, Android, and Nintendo. MS is playing some 3D chess here, this is beyond simple console and subscription sales.
Yes they will besides the MMOs that are already out and the 2 games Sony moneyhatted.
The melt downs will be glorious. Basically an entire E3 show worth of studios now making Xbox Exclusives.
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Sony: Final Fantasy is exclusive to PS5
Xbox gamer: Damn. I guess I’ll need to buy a PS5 if I want to play it, or I could wait and see if it gets ported later. Those are my options. It’s not what I wanted, but life goes on.
Microsoft: Fallout is exclusive to Xbox
Sony gamer: brain breaks
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Pretty much mate people will just have too get over it , sony would make them all exclusives Microsoft is only doing what Sony would.
Less of a take on whether Bethesda games will be exclusive or not, more a monologue on how I feel about the whole debacle:
Pre 2018 Xbox was in dire straights and I don’t need to bore you all with the details. Between 2018-2020 Xbox started to acquire a bunch of studios and this was great news but we new the results were a whole off.
With the enhanced first party beginning to have stuff to show at Xbox Games showcase, we all liked what we saw, but still, was a while off and even then, was no guarantee that those games would be of good quality. That showcase put Xbox closer to Sony, but still behind in time, but also was still a grey area in quality.
The Bethesda acquisition changed everything. It double the first party with a bunch of studios that have a proven track record of games varying from good to revolutionary.
Because of this, a good chunk of my faith in Xbox as a video game company hinges on what they decide to do with these titles. It would be so incredibly tone deaf to not make your customers feel validated by making these games exclusive. By not making these games exclusive, they are still behind Sony and public perception will scarcely change.
I like that Xbox is a progressive video game company by comparison to the competitions.but exclusivity has been a weak point for Xbox for nearly a decade now.
In the instance of partial exclusivity (timed), what’s the point? What does that accomplish? Timed exclusives arguably have a worse reputation than full exclusives so you aren’t saving face.
In the event of exclusivity only for new IP, that’s so much more waiting. Not to mention that drastically slows down the potential output of studios who work on pre-existing IP’s, like ID with doom, BGS with ES / Fallout and Arkane with Dishonoured. Why gimp this acquisition (presumably for good PR) when it’s a much needed check.
I’d like to say that because of the above, I’m confident that everything going forward will be exclusive, but Xbox makes weird decisions sometimes and they need to get this one right.
Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
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Here’s the thing though. “Exclusives” have never really been an issue with Xbox. It is has always been “Well I can play those on PC so those games don’t count”. It’s all a made-up narrative with moving goal posts. This isn’t going to change with Bethesda because no matter what, I think everyone agrees that those games will be on PC.
One of the largest games out is on Xbox and not available on PS and no one gives a crap on the forums.
There are some people who will be able to take an “above the fray”, “see the big picture” attitude about things if Bethesda games are not console exclusive to Xbox, but IMO the majority of Xbox games are going to be very unhappy and even demoralized.
Folks can put forth all kinds of rational, reasonable arguments about why they shouldn’t feel that way, but it won’t matter, most of the Xbox fanbase would be unbelievably upset.
Nothing would make me, buy a PlayStation console as their exclusives do nothing for me all, but so many folks will give up on the Xbox ecosystem IMO, even if it would be illogical to do so,
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If MS needs to put Wolfenstein 3 on PS because its the “end of a trilogy”, an argument can be for every Bethesda game going forward honestly
It’s simple really like really simple, they want people to sub to Game Pass that is literally the reason why they bought Bethesda. How does putting their games on other platforms help that? if anything the more publishers the more people would want to sub to Game Pass. MS is in a really special spot that many people don’t fully recognize, they own Azure which is going to play a huge part in xCloud + Game Pass.
MS is the only gaming company that has the following;
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1st party IP
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Good support from 3rd parties and have been in the game for a while
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Console hardware
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A subscription service with 18m+ users already
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Backed by a massive cloud infostructure
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The full backing of a trillion dollar company willing to open their bank account to grow the brand
I don’t think people realize how good this is looking to investors, they would be drooling at the fact Game Pass has 18m users already and would want even more, which brings us back to square 1. Exclusive content will be the only thing that pushes people to subscribe, exclusives have been the foundation of console gaming for decades. MS came out with a subscription service that allows you to play all their games for just $10 a month, meaning they are already losing money there so this entire “but they’ll lose so many sales on X platform” is flatout dumb.
MS can get to customers on other competitors platforms without putting their games on there and that’s where xCloud comes into play. Why put your game on a PS5/Switch to hit that market when you can just put xCloud on their damn TV and you can completely sidestep Sony and Nintendo. I would not be shocked if in 3 or so years time we see a Xbox Streaming box that bundles in 3 months of Game Pass + 1 Xbox controller and the box for like $99 that is purely for streaming.
All that said the games will be exclusive, I can see the current MMOs be supported in future on the platforms they are already on but that’s it.
edit: Proof is in the pudding
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Exactly.
MS needs to put them out of their misery.
Everyone : Arguing over exclusives - case by case - multi-platform
Me : so many day and date games for Gamepass 
Sure they want subscriptions to GP, but since GP is a little like Netflix, you could say something like: “Netflix isn’t going to release any of their content on Bluray because they want subscribers. If it was available on Bluray why would people subscribe to Netflix?” Now is Netflix going to put out all content day and date streaming and physical media? No. However, do you see a case for some stuff being streaming only and some stuff getting physical releases?
The thing is games used to be only thought of as a loss leader to get people to buy consoles to build up the userbase so developers would chase and the console manufacturer could sit back and collect those licensing fees. Adding for Nintendo controlling the cartridges, while for Sony it was installing CD, DVD, and Bluray into homes. Today games have become profitable on their own, they aren’t made just to sell consoles anymore. You have microtransactions and popular IPs can turn into movies and tv series.
So what if for example MS has plans on leveraging Elder Scrolls into an entire franchise of movies, books, toys, etc… You don’t think they would want the games everywhere to help facilitate that? Again I’m just talking about the possibilities here, I don’t think it is too far fetched. This is the difference from my picture vs others. Other people are thinking MS bought Bethesda to beat Sony, I’m thinking MS bought Bethesda to potentially own the next LOTR.
I’m sorry but this is a really dumb scenario that doesn’t relate to anything about Game Pass, the comparison is not even remotely close to what I’m saying. Idk why you’re comparing physical media with streaming, physical copies on Xbox won’t stop Game Pass from growing but releasing physical copies on other platforms will.
Exactly, this is why they don’t need to put their stuff on every platform, PC/Xbox/Mobile combined makes up the majority of the gaming industry.
Again yes they do want to put their games everywhere but not in the sense you’re talking about, they don’t need to release their games standalone on PS5/Switch for their games to be big and grow into major franchises also Elder Scrolls is already in that phase lol skipping a PS5/Switch release doesn’t degrade Elder Scrolls to dumpster trash.
The only way I see Xbox games on PS5/Switch after all this is done is Game Pass on those systems and Game Pass only as in you can’t buy the games on PS5/Switch you must subscribe to Game Pass. But like I said MS doesn’t need to do that because they can sidestep both companies and just serve their games to people through xCloud, Xbox and PC.
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They bought Bethesda because gamepass can get Xbox to be a 100 billion dollar per year business for them.
The way they do that is get people into their ecosystem, where their subscribers will pay for subscriptions but also purchase other things in their ecosystem while they are there. Microsoft makes revenue off of everything purchased in their ecosystem.
They have goals to reach 3 billion gamers, that’s ambitious, it’s also true, Microsofts CEO doesn’t exaggerate their intentions as they are publicly traded.
The benefit of growing to several hundred million subscribers, all spending additional money on their digital store, is massive, many many times over anything they can gain by releasing on any other platform.
This Bethesda move is the first step that Microsoft will be taking towards this goal. They’ll be growing to upwards of 40 studios cranking out diverse industry leading content. Getting people into gamepass and into their ecosystem is their priority and they’ll do anything to do that imo.
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