Questions have been lingering for months about what Xbox will do with Bethesda and its upcoming games once Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax Media became official. Well, with that deal now officially closed, Xbox Head Phil Spencer today tackled those questions head-on in a new roundtable event between the two entities.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Spencer was asked near the start of today’s event about how Bethesda games will be rolling out in the future and what platforms they will come to. Hoping to put an end to the questions altogether, Spencer said he wanted to do his best to clearly portray the situation so that fans can know what to expect. “Obviously I can’t sit here and say that every Bethesda game is an exclusive because we know that’s not true. There are contractual obligations that we’re going to see through as we always do in every one of these instances,” Spencer said at first. This first statement likely refers specifically to Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop, both of which are slated to release in 2021. However, prior to being acquired by Xbox, Bethesda signed deals for both games that would see them launching on PlayStation 5 exclusively for a set period of time.
“We have games that exist on other platforms and we’re going to go support those games on the platforms they’re on. There’s communities of players, we love those communities, and we’ll continue to invest in them. And even in the future, there might be things that have contractual things or legacy on different platforms that we’ll go do,” Spencer went on to say. This seems to mainly be in reference to live service games that Bethesda is still currently working on. If you happen to play these titles on non-Xbox platforms, they’ll still be supported in the future.
In what was surely Spencer’s clearest wording on the matter, though, he said that Xbox’s goal moving forward is primarily to bring Bethesda titles to platforms that support Game Pass. “But if you’re an Xbox customer, this is the thing I want you to know: this is about delivering great exclusive games for you that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists. And that’s our goal, that’s why we’re doing this. That’s the root of this partnership that we’re building. And the creative capability we will be able to bring to market for our Xbox customers is going to be the best it’s ever been for Xbox after we’re done here,” he stated.
While Spencer did leave the door open a bit for releases on other platforms in the future, it seems very clear that Xbox Game Pass continues to be the sole focus for the team at Xbox. As such, if you were still holding out hope for more Bethesda game to come to PlayStation, Nintendo, or other platforms in the future, well, that no longer seems quite likely. This shouldn’t be a shock, honestly, but it’s also now great to have some clarification on the matter.
So does this new information from Spencer upset you? Or did you expect things to play out in this manner? Let me know either down in the comments or over on Twitter at @MooreMan12.
