The Elder Scrolls 6 Update Is Bad News for PlayStation Players

Bethesda's latest update on The Elder Scrolls 6 and its catalog is bad news for PlayStation players on PS4 and PS5. A couple of months ago, Microsoft announced the acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda, the publisher of games and series like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but also DOOM, Dishonored, Wolfenstein, RAGE, Quake, and Prey. At the time of the announcement, it was unclear what this meant for PS5 and PS4 players looking forward to games like The Elder Scrolls 6 and Starfield. And for a while, this remained unclear, but now more information addressing these questions has surfaced.

The good news is it sounds like Bethesda and Microsoft have no plans to stop releasing games on PlayStation consoles, at least not as a blanket policy. The bad news is that during a recent conference, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart suggested, at the very least, Bethesda games will play best on Xbox, and in some cases come there first as well.

"We don't have intentions of just pulling all of Bethesda content out of Sony or Nintendo or otherwise," said Stuart said during the Jefferies Interactive Entertainment Conference via Seeking Alpha. "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."

Stuart continued:

"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."

Unfortunately, for now, Microsoft and Bethesda aren't saying anything definitive. You'd assume that if the pair had plans to make all of or some of their games Xbox console exclusive, they would simply announce this, as it would help push Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S units. That said, it does sound like, at the very least, PlayStation fans may not enjoy the same quality port as Xbox players do and may have to wait out timed exclusivity periods.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is in development for PC, and at the moment, this is the only platform that's been announced, and currently, there's also been no word of a release date or a release window.