Microsoft shouldn't be generous when it comes to Bethesda exclusivity

Homegrown exclusives e.g. Uncharted, God of War, Halo, Gears - don't expect to see on the other console, ppl should understand

Timed exclusives e.g. Rise of TR, FF7R - just be patient, you'll be able to play it eventually, don't be mad or blame should go equally to publisher

Multiplatform games platform holder bought to make exclusive - seems kinda shitty and I can understand being mad

aw yeah baby console wars are back!

Lol dude if Microsoft ppl could play Bloodborne and shit that would be so great. The bias is towards everyone having access to games and good times, not towards gatekeeping one way or the other bc of some kind of revenge.

(Makes post)

(People point out the issues with said post)

"Guess there's too many Sony fanboys here, huh?"

...

Clowning aside, it's kinda weird to root for there to be less access to games in general. That's honestly what I've loved about Microsoft this past couple of years, letting me play their best stuff on my PC instead of having to shell out for an Xbox One or Series X. Microsoft going back to console exclusivity after buying out a totally profitable and independent publisher would feel -- both as an individual consumer and in the context of their business strategy these days -- pretty draconian.

Re: "if this were Sony you'd be saying the same thing"... nah. When Sony was the stick in the mud for Fortnite and Minecraft cross-play a couple years ago, most if not all of the GB community was calling them out for pettily keeping the playerbases separated, which clearly benefited them as the market leader.

@mykeacid said:

bro

they never left

they're just all adults now

@haz_kaj: LOL! Nah! It's f*ck market consolidation and reducing consumer choices; that's a lose-lose situation for consumers. It's a bad move regardless of who made it.

What's more, Corporations aren't your friend and brands aren't a personal identity. Going to the mattresses for Xbox (or Sony or Nintendo) gets you absolutely nothing.

This is some serious projection. You think you're arguing against Sony fans because you already have a console war mindset. The majority opinion in this thread is that games should be available on as many platforms as possible and thus accessible to as many people as people. No one in this thread is saying Microsoft games should be on every platform but Sony games should never go anywhere else.

While the tone of the initial post is not great the sentiment is pretty correct. As Jeff said on todays Bombcast, they paid for these studios so they should make it exclusive. The idea that it's better for everyone to get to play everything is a great one, but it's not something that console manufactures have generally gone for. When Nintendo helped finance Bayonetta 2 they didn't bring it to other platforms where they could have inevitably made a lot more money. They kept it exclusive because they paid for it so they used it as a bargaining chip to get more people to purchase their product. I typically buy both consoles each generation so it's not a huge deal for me, but everyone saying that it would be so nice for Microsoft to just keep it open and not limit gamers to where they can play are seeing the situation through very rose tinted glasses. At the end of the day Microsoft wants to be able to say that the Xbox is the only place where you can play XYZ which is why you should purchase an Xbox over a Playstation. Whats the point of acquiring all these studios if you can still just stick to Sony's box and play all those games there. It will suck for a lot of people but there will be a lot of exclusivity going forward from those studios.

Dunno why some people keep up with boards that are so obviously "against them."

Almost as if they're not here to actually have a discussion, just prop themselves up and feel superior.

@humanity: It's not about what's standard business practise though, it's about what they "should" do. Sure, you can approach that "should" from a business standpoint that plays up competition, but you don't have to.

It's not rose tinted glasses to see it as being nice, because it would be nice. I don't see how that could reasonably be disputed. But it'd be rose tinted glasses to think Microsoft absolutely will avoid hoarding exclusives because we're somehow past this kind of shit.

@humanity: I don't really understand yours or Jeff's point though. MS on a worldwide scale likely is not ever going to see the Xbox reach the same heights as the Playstation or oftentimes, the Switch. So, with a decision to not keep things exclusive, they don't lose people in their ecosystem, and they get paid for any games created by studios that they own that go to consoles with even larger ecosystems. It seems pretty simple to me. Making them all exclusive is just gambling that a) people will buy your console just for those games; and b) in a lot of cases, people will buy a SECOND console just for those games.

That seems a far riskier move to me than just ensuring you profit off of the brand you purchased by letting everyone, no matter the console (or PC) can play it.

@humanity: You make perfect sense, and you're right, but here's the thing, I don't care. I can only assume it's still an exclusive because of some contract thing or other such corporate dick swinging nonsense. Why should I give a shit about that? Just let me play with the cool new toys

It's pretty weird that you're railing on bias and loyalty while simultaneously coming off very much as a pro-MS, anti-Sony vibe by calling anyone who disagrees with you a Sony fanboy. Tonally, you're all over the place. But, I mean, whatever. You do you, dude.

That aside, yeah, Microsoft paid cold hard cash for a big publishing studio. They wouldn't do that if they weren't confident they could recoup that with exclusivity. It's crazy how personally people are taking this as Bethesda 'selling out'.

I don't want microsoft to get anymore hurt than it already is. If it backs out of systems, well be at the wim of PS5's choices. Face it Nintendo is not in competition with anyone and is a system specifically for their games once a system before they need 5 years to make another gem. We got free psplus games cause competition, not playing nice and whatnot. Overall i would agree. Microsoft stay competitive any way you can.

I agree actually. If Bethesda only has to ship a game on one console, maybe they'll be able to focus on shipping one that actually works. Boom! Suck it Todd Howard, who is definitely reading this post instead of doing rich guy stuff somewhere!

Lots of people in here arguing that Microsoft wouldn't risk losing money by limiting Bethesda games to only their own platform but I can 100% guarantee that's what they will do because exclusives are worth more than direct profit right now: in the early stages of the console lifespan, they need to sell as much hardware as possible even if it cuts into software sales in order to ensure the long-term profitability of the platform. If there's even a chance that some consumers will think "I should get an Xbox instead of a PS5 because they will have Fallout/Skyrim" then that entire acquisition is vindicated, even if overall sales of those games takes a hit as a result, and anyone who thinks otherwise is incredibly naive.

People saying things like "it will make them look good" or "it's the right thing to do" in here, have we been living on different planets for the last 30 years?

I think by the time there's a new Elder Scrolls out for anyone to say "I need to buy a new Xbox for the new Elder Scrolls game" they'll be more people asking "Why would I buy an Xbox if I can just stream it on Game Pass?"

Looks at title of thread... I agree. You're precisely half of the problem in regards to said bias though.

As someone who doesn't intend to buy either next gen console I find this statement in poor taste given prior sentiment. I personally would like as many games on as many platforms as possible. (An end MS have moved towards and Sony recently started moving towards in recent times)

This console war business does little to help consumers ultimately.

On another note: Those who believe MS/Sony need to sell consoles right now seem to aknowledge the fact that they can sell more boxes with more exclusives but also seem to ignore the fact that selling boxes right now isn't particularly profitable.

@sweep: I don't think they will do it for any feel good or ethical reason, but unless they start announcing exclusives SOON I do think that they won't bother for quite a while because I just don't expect the average gamer that owns a PS5 to run out and buy an Xbox Series months or years from now unless there are just wall-to-wall hits that are well received by all.

Who knows though, this is all just a guessing game at this stage. Bethesda could end up a shell of its former self within this generation depending on decisions down the line. Wouldn't be the first time big company buys beloved small company and proceeds to either fuck up or destroy smaller company despite best intentions. Especially in games.

If the conversation is "what Microsoft is actually going to do," then yeah, they are absolutely going to make exclusives out of Bethesda's library.

If the conversation is "what should Microsoft do" then you're going to get a lot of folks saying to keep Bethesda games multiplatform.

As long as all the Bethesda games come to Game Pass I don't care if they're released on other platforms or not.

The most likely situation seems to be something similar to what Microsoft are doing right now regarding PC publishing. Games like The Master Chief Collection and Forza Horizon 4 have only recently been released on Steam, even though they've been available on Xbox and the Microsoft Store for years. Despite the long delay, Microsoft's games have been selling really well on Steam. So if Starfield for example were to come out in 2022, we might see it on Steam and PS5 in 2025 or so.

@sethmode: As Sweep mentioned it's about getting a strong install base and it's also about asserting market dominance. Short term they might lose out on extra revenue they would have otherwise gotten while selling their games on different platforms, but long term they get a ton of people with Series X's. This also leads to a lot of people probably signed up to Game Pass which is a lot more valuable than one off sales because subscriptions are a source of steady monthly revenue. I mean it's not any different than Nintendo never releasing any of their games anywhere else. They could make billions if the next Mario Party came to Series X/PS5, but just like Sony and Microsoft they are sacrificing that chunk of income to maintain their unique exclusivity. Same for Halo, same for Uncharted - blockbuster games that could earn billions of they appear anywhere else but they don't. Microsoft is actually very clever in that a lot of their games appear on PC now so unlike Sony they get to dip in both marketplaces.

Also I don't think this is about converting anyone because the people that are still willing to entertain brand loyalty in 2021 will continue to do so. The people that were always going to get both boxes like myself are also not affected. But the folks that are on the fence, especially now that neither console is easily obtainable because of the production bottleneck, that is a very real battleground that could determine the future of the generation. Especially since we have seen that historically developers will optimize games for the more popular consoles first leading to a public perception that games just "play better" on that one instead of the other.

@humanity: Time will tell, but I don't think it is nearly as much of a given unless MS is willing to do what Sony and Nintendo do, which is make their games Xbox exclusive. Otherwise, the comparison to companies like Nintendo is moot.

Only the warm and firm embrace of the Embracer group can save us now!

Forza Horizon 4 just popped up on Steam, which a few years ago would have been nonsense talk. With how MS seems to be heading with making GamePass available to anyone who wants it it'll probably be possible to stream any of their games on a product that'll run a browser of some form, like a PS5, if you sub to it. Therefore why not also give other brand's player base an option to pay for it too, especially with Bethesda's pretty popular portfolio. It's just a different method of attack to the other two major console makers' business plans (more centred around exclusivity) but it's ultimate aim is still to just take as many monies from as many people as possible. They just see this way as their best option to do it.

This seems to pretty mch sum up the whole thread. It sucks when Sony and Nintendo do it. It would suck if Microsoft did it (and, for the record, they do with their other games). I would love it if everyone could play Bloodborne or Splatoon on whichever platform they own without having to buy a specific console to do so. I have a PS4, Switch, and PC, but not a modern Xbox - I was overjoyed to see the Yakuza series come to Xbox so more people could play them, and so was the vast majority of the fanbase.

@haz_kaj: Speak of Sony buying exclusive, the fuck is the deal with Persona 5 series? The turn-based rpg remains PS exclusive while the action sequel comes to Steam and Switch. I own a PS4 and copies of both Persona 5 and Royal. But there is no way I can sit in front of a console for that many hours. So, wtf .

While i'm always for less exclusivity i totally understand if someone wants to put their first party games on their own platform only.
In Bethesda's case i might suggest they shouldn't be exclusive to a platform, the audience for Elder Scrolls and Fallout is massive which is a great reason to force everyone to buy an Xbox, but not a very friendly one, there are a lot of Elder Scrolls fans with PS5's and the community benefits from having access to those games on any platform.
I'm on PC so i'm fine, if Sony picked them up i'd be more miffed not only because i'd be out, but because the heritage of Bethesda games is on PC, Doom, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, to abandon PC would be a tragedy.

@sweep: The PR benefits definitely don't matter one way or the other.

In general (and for every other acquisition), I am in full agreement that the benefit of exclusivity is worth a lot more than the profits of cross platform*. But Bethesda IS a very special case as the only thing on more platforms than Skyrim is DOOM and that potentially IS a lot of "long tail" money. nu-DOOM and Wolfenstein will almost definitely be exclusives* and I still lean toward Starfox remaining cross platform because of existing deals/"It was already in development and we at Microsoft totally care".

TES6 is the weird one for me. It seems unfathomable that it would not be cross platform simply because of how well it sells. But... that is also kind of the point of getting these kinds of exclusives.

So I go back and forth. "If I were in charge" I would rush out a good starflux (because that is totally how game dev works) within the next two or three years as an advertisement for "Yo, Bethesda figured out how to read bug reports" and try to get a deep dive of TES6 at least at the Summer Of Keighley that the XSSS, XSSX (Tricky), XSXS, and XSXX are announced as a "And if you want to play that new and polished Bethesda fun times, you gots to get an xbox or a PC".

*: Ignoring a potential "Gamepass for Playstation" that seems impossible but who the flipping hell knows at this point?

This, and if MS did make the games multi-platform those same people would turn around and say "Xbox has no games" and buy a Playstation. Yea it'd be great if we didn't have to deal with exclusives, but they work and consumers respond to them by buying the console with exclusives.

What's the point in even making those assumptions about what people in this thread would "turn around and say" lol. If you wanna know what people believe, ask!

If MS made everything multiplatform (when they absolutely didn't have to, like here), I'd genuinely be more inclined to buy an Xbox. I certainly wouldn't play into that petty narrative about "no games."

Why be curmudgeonly about business practises and then be cynical and dismissive about actually supporting changing those practises?

@theht: I'm going to have to agree with @littledansonman here. If there are two consoles on a shelf and one plays Sony and Microsoft games, and the other only plays Microsoft games im buying the one that plays both of them. It would be fantastic if MS put there games out on PS, but i highly doubt Sony would do the same. And saving $500 and getting one box beats spending $1,000 and having two boxes if all you want is to play games. As much as people like to support better business practices, i think people like saving a buck more weather or not in the long run its good or bad for them.

Well this is nostalgic.
If making your money on game sales and game subscription services,
it probably behooves you to release on as many platforms as possible.

That's very noble of you, but you have to appreciate that you're in the minority for thinking that way. Just because we don't tolerate console wars on our forums doesn't change the fact that many consumers are arbitrarily tribal about which products they buy, and are likely to be even more so at this stage in the generation where consoles are expensive and most people are going to be forced to "pick a side" simply because they don't have enough money to be neutral and buy everything.

I think the amount of people who enforce that tribal mentality is going to trivialise the good intentions of anyone trying to support multi-platform releases by 1st party developers. It sucks, and I'd love for everyone to be able to play everything, but I don't think it's a realistic expectation.

Hey man, looks like you'll be getting your wish, to the surprise of nobody.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-head-phil-spencer-breaks-down-bethesda-game-exclusivity/1100-6488707/

Edit: I don't know how links work, and I can't be fucked to figure it out on my phone.

The thing that bugs me about this situation is, that had Sony purchased Bethesda, then no one would question whether or not everything would be exclusive. The people complaining about Microsoft possibly keeping the next Elder Scrolls game from a PS5, would be over the moon if the situation was reversed. What’s worst is that Sony would have been slow to put Bethesda games on PC, if they even would at all. At least with Microsoft, you know for sure the games will release on PC the same day as the XBox, where as Sony would probably make you wait a year.

Exclusivity, is a stupid practice. People should be able play what they want, where ever they want. But why should Microsoft be held at a higher standard than Sony? I was just on Twitter checking for a Series X/PS5 restock (I want both, and am having a bitch of a time), and everything PS5 related is filled with people clamoring for one, but the XBox messages are filled with people saying “Get a PC instead, fuck Microsoft” or “Why do people want an XBox, when it has no games?”. It’s so fucking weird.

Biases are stupid, and people shouldn’t be beholden to corporations, but I do get irritated (stupidly) seeing Microsoft get dunked on repeatedly, when I feel like they have been for more consumer friendly for a while now.

Exclusivity kind of blows but its fine and expected when platform holders have their own studios who've developed original IP. The bummer about this situation is that Bethesda games were multiplatform for years, now they're only on everything with GamePass. They didn't build Bethesda studios from the ground up, they straight up bought all of Bethesda for the studios and IP and locked them down. This would be like if Nintendo bought Capcom and published Resident Evil 8 only on Switch. As a person who wants to play future DOOM and Wolfenstein games and the new Indiana Jones game, it sucks to have next titles in those franchises stuck on a different platform that I'm not invested in. I purchased a gaming laptop in anticipation of this but I would much rather have everything on one system.

I have simple needs, I just want to shoot MechaHitler in the face with a laser cannon and punch Nazis in the face as Indiana Jones and feel it all with a DualSense, OK?...

And they won’t be. Microsoft is a business and will always pick the option that benefits them the most.

@ungodly: I agree that no one would question whether Bethesda games would be exclusive should Sony have purchased them, but I think that has a lot more to do Microsoft's recent openness and consumer friendly policies than a "fuck Microsoft" mentality.

With Sony, you know what you're getting -- old school, "we make this box and we have games you can only play on this box," while Microsoft is going to much more ambitious and broad places with Game Pass, cross-play, streaming in beta, and PC releases on Steam. For a lot of people, I imagine, you could at least hope that MS would do differently with their purchase of Bethesda, even though they had every financial incentive to not do that.

If there are Sony fanboys out there going "rrr just buy a PC, fuck Microsoft for making ES6 exclusive," then yeah, those are weirdos. Not seeing much of that here, though.

Well, I can't say that the OP doesn't make this place more insetting.

On topic: I'm mainly a PC guy, so I'm neutral since I'll have access to the game regardless.

Damn, I love my preferred platform.

would be over the moon if the situation was reversed

I saw a lot of positivity around Horizon getting a PC-port and Jim Ryan mentioning that they'll be bringing more games to PC in the future, so i don't think that people around these parts are cheering for exclusivity. Most people here state that they want games to be as widely available as possible, so i think that's a more accurate description of what people would like to see.

People are not holding one company to a higher standard, they are seeing differences in the way that both businesses present their business and adjust their expectations of how things might play out.

One has based it's strategy entirely around their own hardware with their own cinematic action spectacles for over a decade (Still super surprised that Horizon Zero Dawn is on PC now personally) , and the other one speaks of the importance of getting their games out a plethora of devices and offering a great value to an ever evolving game pass subscription model. Naturally, we are standing at the sideline trying to make sense of the exact strategic choices that Xbox would want to make regarding to their own studio's, contractual obligations, goodwill, exclusives, importance of increasing the gamepass MAU's etc. So there's a lot of uncertainty on which franchises will pop up where, and how widespread gamepass will eventually be. and naturally the financial impact of seemingly prioritizing gamepass proliferation over making sure that players get their hardware. Those are interesting moves that makes Xbox fun to talk about.

@lapsariangiraff: You misunderstood some of what I’m saying. Some of the places where I see people talking about this stuff are Reddit, IGN forums, Twitter, and Gamespot forums. There’s a bias, or maybe bias is too strong a word, the usual rhetoric I see is against Microsoft regardless of what they’re doing. Some of it is no doubt old “Console Wars” hang ups, and some of it probably lingering irritations from how the Xbox used to be run. Either way there’s a lot of it, and I think that’s where the person that started this thread is coming from.

Regardless to whether Phil Spencer has been open about how he wants to do things, people are attacking the brand for not having console exclusives. So with that in mind, this just seems like them being aggressive. I don’t think it’s great, but I understand being annoyed with the double standard.

As far as them taking existing multi platform games, and making them exclusive. Well that isn’t new to video games. Sony took the seventh Final Fantasy game away from Nintendo, Street Fighter from Microsoft, and I’m sure there are other examples.

@ungodly: I guess. Just seems kind of weird to come into a thread to complain about people from other threads we've never interacted with, and not even specify that but just talk broadly and say "people". And the OP has also gone out of his way to call folks in this thread Sony fanboys. You may be being charitable to a fault, and giving OP some nuance they haven't articulated.

Buying existing properties and making them exclusive is not new, for sure.

@lapsariangiraff: I mean, I wasn’t under the impression that what the OP was talking about was relegated to just the Giant Bomb forum. I’m also not going to defend someone I don’t know, and I don’t agree with some of the things the OP is saying. Just trying to add some context.

When I read the initial post, I wanted to share my feelings on it.

I'm amused and troubled by the console war bs vibes I'm getting.

@ungodly: Like the OP the rhetoric you see around MS is simply due to the fact, of the three its the smallest platform.

Whenever MS signs any sort of exclusivity deal it effects far more people compared to Sony doing the same, so its only natural you'll see a lot more discourse.

Sony gets exactly the same, when they bought Insomniac people were disappointed we would probably never get a Sunset Overdrive sequel, and they got a lot of hassel for cross play. Its just due to the smaller numbers effected the voices are just not as loud.

OP is console wars who's issue is that water is wet.

The fact you said the word "fanboy" means you are already lost.

Exclusives suck regardless of context.

I like console wars. The trash talking aspect of it, you know, something akin to arguing who's football team is best.

It's not to be taken seriously, of course. Threats of physical violence are best left out of the discussion.

Phil Spencer kinda answered this yesterday.