Phil Spencer: Bethesda Deal Not Done to Take Games Away From Another Player Base

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Just last month, the gaming world was rocked when Microsoft announced that it was buying ZeniMax Media, which was the parent company of Bethesda — home of the Fallout, DOOM, and other noteworthy franchises. While Microsoft already said that it will honor the previous deals made by the publisher before the buyout (such as Deathloop’s PS5 exclusivity), we’re left in the dark when it comes to future Bethesda games.

In a new interview with Kotaku, Xbox boss Phil Spencer talks about the Microsoft Bethesda acquisition, and states they didn’t buy the House of Skyrim just so less players can play Bethesda’s games.

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. – Phil Spencer, Xbox boss

In the same chat, Spencer was asked whether it was possible to recoup Microsoft’s $7.5 billion investment in Bethesda even if say, Elder Scrolls VI, doesn’t come out on a PlayStation platform. Spencer states “yes,” and explains what he means.

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. – Phil Spencer, Xbox boss

Go read the entire interview to know more about Spencer’s thoughts on the Xbox Series S, internal studios and more.

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Radb707
Radb707
3 years ago

Love this shit. Sony can make exclusive deals all the time and buy studios and make games for them and hold Spider-Man hostage but wait…wait…Microsoft isn’t going to release Bethesda games on PS5? The horror.

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