So Microsoft just bought Bethesda

Well I did not see that coming.

Massive news. Whether that means straight up exclusives or just a bigger slice of the multiiplatform market but this may help their 'no games' problem

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/09/21/welcoming-bethesda-to-the-xbox-family/

Well this is massive. I wonder if that Deathloop timed exclusivity on PS5 will hold up.

EDIT: I forgot that GhostWire: Tokyo has also only been announced on the PS5. Let's see when that will change.

Well this is very shocking lol. Sony wants to get Final Fantasy as a timed exclusive so Microsoft just decided to go get Elders Scrolls. That sure is a way to move some units in like 10 years when that game comes out lol. By then Final Fantasy 16 might be out so its a nice hard counter lol

This is big. Sony is going to need to do SOMETHING besides putting out a big budget narrative game every couple years.

Microsoft has been doing all these acquisitions, bolstering their services/infrastructure, and just making arguments for "good value".

I understand Sony's strategy and stance on video games, they want to stay the "art house" of video games. But I don't know how long that's viable.

This is significant for a variety of reasons, but the one thing that keeps running through my brain is "Fallout: New Vegas 2"...

God getting MS games on PC is going to be dueling launchers for the next few years isn't it? Bethesda launcher, wait no we're back on Steam, actually the Windows store, I mean the Xbox app, actually all of them, except for this one title.

I just realized that Obsidian and Bethesda are under the safe roof now. And Obsidian just announced that very Elder Scrolls looking RPG. Where are all these games going to go?

Wow. This is going to make things even more interesting. MS don't seem to be messing around this time.

Daaamn

This is, perhaps, the most insane gaming news story I can think of for the year. And think about what it does for Game Pass!

I have to think at least one of Zenimax’s titles will have a a a Series S/X remaster done in time for launch. A ray traced Doom Eternal or Skyrim could be a major get for Game Pass on launch day.

@isomeri: MS also bought basically all the major remnants of Black Isle (inXile and Obsidian) to the point that they have all the major players in CRPGs other than Bioware (sort of...), Larian, and CDPR.

Big get - now Microsoft is effectively launching two PS5 timed exclusives. Get it on PC, Xbox or PS5, they still get their cut.

Also since Microsoft has been throwing cash around lately and they love backing games that don't actually turn that much of a profit, maybe my dreams of Dishonored 3 will become a reality. I'm sure myself and the 3 other people in the world that love that franchise would be thrilled to play another one.

@gundato: This could be a great strategy for them. Like, Sony’s got the market cornered in cinematic action games and top notch open world games. Rather than compete with that, Microsoft appears to be cornering the market on hardcore CRPGs, which has its own dedicated fan base that will go with whatever platform delivers on their favorite genre. Next gen is getting really interesting, that’s for sure.

Xbox now have 19 studios working for them.

343 Industries, Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, inXile Entertainment, Mojang Studios, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Playground Games, Rare, The Coalition, The Initiative, Turn 10 Studios, Undead Labs, World's Edge with Arkane Studios SASU, Bethesda Game Studios, id Software, MachineGames and Tango Gameworks having now been added.

That list does not include 2nd-party studios putting out games like Flight Simulator, Ori etc. So I guess the issue of a thin exclusives lineup should be sorted out in a year or two.

So now Bethesda has enough money to use a new engine?

So no Skyrim special edition on PS5 then?

That's bananas. Anyone who doesn't own a half decent PC is now going to have to seriously reassess their next gen console commitments.

@humanity:

You and me both. They better be nice to Arkane. I hope MS adopt a "wallet open, hands off" approach.

Tbh, going into this next generation, I've kind of cooled on video games in general. My plan generally was to just upgrade my PC a bit and stick with Game Pass. Then down the track I'll get a PS5 (almost solely for the next God of War, but also with the knowledge that Sony are going to have something from Naughty Dog eventually and probably something along the lines of another Bloodborne or Sekiro)

I still think that my plan with Game Pass is solid but yea, this is a massive move from MS. The lack of exclusive games on Xbox was one of its big killers in the One/PS4 gen, and wasn't looking great going into next gen.

@mrcheese: Suspect TES and mainline nu-Fallout will be like Minecraft in that it gets re-released and sold everywhere. It is just too popular and too much of the market to ignore and MS would still get a cut.

But I COULD see something like a Fallout New Vegas being console exclusive.

@sweep: This is almost exactly the thought I just had about my PC and the fact it needs upgrading.....

@hayt: As far as I know Phil has been alluding to this sort of approach for a while now. I don't have any links on hand but I recall some articles back in the old world where studios spoke very positively about their cooperation with Microsoft.

@facelessvixen: If it ain't bro.. ohh.

Jeff just tweeted about Bethesda maybe not releasing completely broken games now, but for years a lot of people tried to justify this by saying it's such a big open world with so many different parts that it is straight up impossible for these games to not be broken. This is of course a ridiculous thing to say.

This is pretty crazy. I expected MS to keep it up with studio acquisitions but Bethesda, at this point, is one of the largest publishers in the industry. That being said, I have yet to see any of those acquisitions bear any fruit and their console is launching with next to no new games, so it feels like it remains to be seen if these big moves will ever pan out for them.

On a personal level, I love the Elder Scrolls series but it's one of the few series I will generally play on PC so if it ends up as a console exclusive no big loss. I'm interested to hear what the general policy on exclusivity will be for their titles and if there are any exceptions

Huh this really changes things. Having your platform *potentially* be the only way to get the next Fallout or Elder Scrolls is a huge blow for Sony. Curious if Sony will start attempting some acquisitions in the nest couple of years.

@captain_insano: Sekiro was all platforms?

And yeah. Sony still have Naughty Dog and Bloodborne but MS have Ninja Theory (Hellblade, Ensalved, and the good DmC) and Elden Ring (whatever the hell that ends up being)

The more I think about it, the more I think Ninja Theory may be their secret weapon. Because Enslaved was REALLY good. DmC was a blast to play and actually hit some good emotional notes in between the douchiest, but least creepy, depiction of Dante yet. And Hellblade was everything I want from the "This is messed up and painful to play" school of narrative while being short enough to not outstay its welcome. Same with MachineGames from the Bethesda acquisition

We all kind of went in assuming MS would have a wide range of games and Sony would have Naughty Dog. But NT and MG might very well end up giving ND a run for their money to the point it becomes just personal taste rather than "there is nothing else like it"

@effache: Any Microsoft exclusive is automatically available on PC as well. At least this was their promise throughout the Xbox One generation but I don't see why they would go back on that now.

EDIT: The one downside is that on PC you will have to deal with the Windows Store instead of Steam.

I can’t see how MS meaningfully supports all these studios. Many of them will get the short end of the stock if I had to predict. I mean, they barely put out decent games w the handful of teams they had during the current gen, we’re supposed to believe MS will adequately manage all these developers?

I'm suddenly a lot more nervous for 10am CT tomorrow. I was expecting no competition, but now I'm foreseeing a lot more people pressing F5 in their browsers now :|

Microsoft bringing the heat! This was rumored a while back but the murmurs were that Bethesda is too big a company for Microsoft to acquire but it seems they have money to spare and bought not just Bethesda but ZeniMax Media. Such a baller move.

Sony is getting some massive competition and I'm all for it. Let's hope they can strike back with something good in the coming year.

@gundato: Wait...is Elden Ring an Xbox exclusive?

@liquiddragon: From what I’ve read, Microsoft has been pretty hands off with its current studios. It’s more of a “just keep making games and we’ll take care of the bills” sort of thing, although I’m sure they do regular check-ins to go over progress. Aside from that, not sure what else they can do to support the studios. They certainly aren’t hard up for money, clearly.

@liquiddragon: A lot of them seem to be pretty small but self sufficient (inxile, obsidian, ninja theory) or have massive cash cows (Bethesda). There are some who I very much see as needing a lot of love but... they are the ones who have effectively been working for MS for the entirety of the last gen.

Staying optimistic, this would be like EA (oh god, it burns) when things work out. Most of the studios are self sufficient and just do their own thing and management only comes by when delays get too big or something flops bad that wasn't meant to flop.

I wonder how long this deal has actually been "done." Pretty shrewd of MS to announce this the day before Series X/S pre-orders go up.

@big_denim: Nope, just marketing.

This is insane. I think Bethesda’s output has been pretty poor after Skyrim (Fallout 4 did nothing for me, and 76 just wasn’t my kind of game), but I am totally down for whatever ID and Arkane have to offer.

I would be pretty concerned if I was Sony right now.

@ssully: I think that's why this is a great move though. The umbrella of Bethesda studios covers a lot of genres. Even if you don't like the open world RPGs by Bethesda proper, they have DOOM for the FPS lovers, Dishonored for the stealth gurus, Evil Within for Horror fans, and ESO for the MMO folks (among many other solid IPs across multiple genres).

So Elder Scrolls 6 and the next DOOM are gonna be console exclusive? Microsoft may be selling a lot more Xboxes than we thought!

That's a really big get. I wonder if this means the games will come out quicker with more frequent content expansions via game pass.

Fuck. That's a HUGE blow to Playstation and Nintendo (and screws any who doesn't own a gaming PC or Xbox console). MS will use this to leverage Game Pass on EVERYTHING. Eat a bag of dicks, Zenimax & Microsoft.

Microsoft: We can't make better goods and products vs. our competitors, so we simply brute force a solution by throwing money at the problems. 'Mericuh!

*MS shows signs of life*

"Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to scrape by for the last 7 years with Xbox One, right?"

Guess they're really serious about buying their way to the top for next gen and beyond. Game Pass will be unstoppable

Huh. Well that's certainly a thing.

Something tells me the price of Game Pass is going to be going up a bit.

@humanity: Oh yeah, I had just meant console exclusivity. Just wondering if already annoucned titles will change available platforms and if there are any titles they would want released across platforms anyway. I know being able to make the next Elder Scrolls game a MS console exclusive is probably the whole point of an acquisition like this but considering how many copies Skyrim, one of the biggest titles of all time, has sold across non-MS platforms, is that really revenue that they would want to give up in the name of bolstering their brand/increasing market share? How much of a difference would a move like that actually end up making? Given how fitful gamers are, could it end up backfiring? idk, it is probably a forgone conclusion that any game going forward will be xbox console exclusive but the business of it is a little fuzzy to me.

@big_denim: I think he is just mixing up studios. He was unsure if Sekiro was an exclusive and that released on every platform besides Switch. Pretty much like 99% sure Elden Ring is gonna be on every console + PC at this point

@rawrz: Playing the long game.

@frytup: Not necessarily, Microsoft wants to position Game Pass as the Netflix of games, they still need to keep increasing the value proposition of it and this is a very good step on that path.

I guess I'll just cross my fingers that whatever the actual third Wolfenstein game is still comes to PS5. Otherwise Bethesda/ZeniMax has always been sort of a peripheral company for me. I enjoyed Fallout 3 enough, but I've never been enamored by hand-to-hand/magic in first person so Oblivion/Skyrim were fundamentally poor games to my mind. Every other game I can think of in the past decade from them - Fallout 4/76, DOOM Eternal, Prey - has a fundamental flaw I either experienced first hand or heard enough about to not be interested in experiencing myself.

So, like I said, fingers crossed for a multiplatform Wolfenstein 3 so I can experience the conclusion of that story, but after the initial reaction of "oh no!" I'm realizing I actually don't have much fondness for Bethesda games (if it weren't for the story, I also wouldn't care that much about Wolfenstein). This does seem like a huge blow for the third party AAA games environment generally, but then I suppose that just means video games are beginning to head down the same path as movies and music where there are the two or three big houses and then everyone else. And maybe Phil's comments about wanting the money more than the prestige will result in these studios not always releasing XBox exclusives.

@ssully: I don't care about Bethesda's output, it's smaller developers like Id and Arkane (owned, IIRC, by Bethesda) that upsets me.

Bethesda proper has been a total joke.