So Microsoft just bought Bethesda

Not if you have Game Pass which only lives through Windows Store.

Idk if this was already mentioned but MS said they'll honor the PS5 "exclusives" from Bethesda that were already announced but going forward they'll decide which game goes multiplatform on a case by case basis.

MS has been pretty hands off the studios they purchased outside of typical financial support. I don't think they need to micromanage each studio they're buying. Money won't be an issue either for them when it comes to supporting all of them, MS has near Apple levels of cash.

Wow, this is a big purchase for MS!

Now my PC rebuild is going to have to happen a little sooner rather than later...

Interesting.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the huge titles go multiplatform but that slightly more niche stuff be exclusive.

That might seem silly but they make huge money from the Elder Scrolls types games but there's audiences of people that are into say a Dishonored enough that they would really go for that or a legit isometric Fallout game from Obsidian.

And then all those big games like Elder Scrolls they might allow to go multiplatform are right on Gamepass day 1 so they do get a boost from them that ways anyhow.

Screw it, Microsoft should just buy SIE.

As some folks are pointing out online, this isn't going to be a huge boon to anyone in the games work except Microsoft and whoever gets a fat bonus at Bethesda when the checks clear. QA and low ranking staff are still going to be contract and no one is going to make more money because of the sale. Cheaper games are nice in the short term, but I'm not wild about a platform holder like Microsoft locking down a huge part of Western Development.

If this means there will be no Elder Scrolls 6 VR I will throw an unimpressive tantrum. Won't play elder scrolls on screens ever again, and MS don't fuck with VR anymore..

They recently started putting their first party games up on steam, including the Halo franchise. I doubt they backtrack on that and tie things to the Microsoft storefront again. If anything, this likely prevents the Epic store from having the next fallout or elder scrolls game as a store exclusive on PC.

Sony should respond by buying From Software.

Also how many studios can Microsoft buy before they get called out for anticompetitive practices?

Right now, as Microsoft tries to win hearts and minds, they will keep their games on Steam. But as long as that 30% cut holds, it is only a matter of time before the storefront wars move into the next stage. And if Steam doesn't cave, that 12% cut that Epic takes is going to look a lot better to Microsoft.

This assumes the 30% holds, which I would not bet on long term. At some point steam is going to be forced to lower their cut to a more reasonable retail rate. And maybe give the developers more control over things like steam forums(which some developers hate because its splits their community team and they have a lot less control) and user reviews.

I also can't shake the feeling that Obsidian and InXile are not long for this world. Obsidian especially has seemed like a studio trying really hard to become a Bethesda-like studio. Having just released a game that is very Fallout-like and starting production a game that seems to be a Skyrim-like. And its very uncharacteristic of a video game publisher to have two studios working on very similar, yet different, IPs.

I hope I'm wrong but, the history of studio acquisitions is not kind to smaller studios, and I would bet money that in five years, Obsidian and InXile are Bethesda support studios.

Remember the lawsuit between ZeniMax and Mojang, over the naming of Mojang's card strategy game Scrolls? Now think about the ZeniMax acquisition and that they will both be working for the same parent company.

I know it doesn't meant anything at all. I just found it funny to think about.

Old broken games ... Except Doom maybe but this is not gonna make me buy a Xbox

Obligatory "I'm not a lawyer", but I think part of making that case would be to calculate what percentage of the video game development industry Microsoft owns. I don't think that's a very large number even after this.

@cupofdoom: I get being wary of big corporate buys but I do think Microsoft seems pretty committed to providing a breadth of games under Phil. They aren't EA just pushing huge stuff. They just put out Wasteland 3 for example which is a big step up from the last one and still an RPG ass RPG. I think the Gamepass thing helps that. The games don't need to come out and be huge on their own.

Also as far as Obsidian making a first person fantasy RPG, Josh Sawyer said they have wanted to do that for years, since Fallout: New Vegas. Elder Scrolls isn't the only one of those.

Hopefully they will gut the zenimax leadership and get back a more consumer friendly approach with those games. I highly doubt they will just do exclusives , doom, fallout, elder scrolls will come to all platforms just like before they will just be taking home more of the sales profit.

Microsoft seems to be going the "windows" route with gaming now, where they distribute the software more so than the hardware. They are already doing it with minecraft and other games published by their owned studios.

I have to wonder if the industry has learned from EA and the brain drain that comes after a move like that. But I am encouraged by Microsoft's history with Bungie, which stayed intact and was able to part ways with Microsoft after some time. I can see Microsoft being very concerned with killing the golden goose.

Why can't Microsoft do me a solid and buy Respawn so there is a tiny sliver of hope for Titan Fall 3?

Given Bethesda's ability to sell us games on everything twice, they probably don't want to cut Sony platforms out of the loop.

Absolutely crazy news. I'm not nearly as high on Bethesda's output as I used to be, but the idea that the next Arkane game could be a console exclusive will make me reconsider which console I buy. Third-party exclusivity is a bummer, but I wonder if this means that Bethesda games won't launch completely broken anymore.

With all that Microsoft money, there's no way the new Elder Scrolls going to be buggy as the previous games. At the very least, it'll be less buggy.

Also, Gamepass is still the best value in gaming this generation and looks like it going forwards as well.

I could see Sony going after Capcom and/or Square, FromSoftware and Atlus (it is kind of crazy they don't already own Atlus).

Hey microsoft here is an idea. Now that you have Id, why not let them look at the Halo

@cupofdoom: I wouldn't worry. Obsidian puts out RPGs at a faster rate than Bethesda. Obsidian pads out the RPG library and then every once in awhile Bethesda adds a heavy hitter. Both can coexist and boost the appeal of gamepass.

@norm9: Microsoft has brought it to a point that you'd be a fool not to get it. And I'm cool with playing the same amount and spending WAY less every year now.

I fully believe that Obsidian is making Avowed because its the kind of game they want to make for ages, and have only just now gotten the resources to do so. I more just meant that its weird that Microsoft is now publishing a first person fantasy RPG from Obsidian and, will be publishing a first person fantasy RPG from Bethesda, whenever they get around to TES VI. We don't know much about Avowed at this point anyways so, its entirely possible that its nothing like Skyrim.

GamePass is the one part of this equation that makes me hopeful that this isn't just history repeating its self. It just depends on what metrics Microsoft is using to judge the success of their own games on the service and, what types of games do well by those metrics. If Wasteland 3 was considered a success by Microsoft then, the future does looks bright for all the studios acquired by Microsoft.

@djredbat: SEGA owns ATLUS, so Sony would most likely have to buy out all of SEGA. Which is maybe possible, but I don't know that Sony has Microsoft money lying around to do so.

Generally not a fan of corporate consolidation. Few people owning lots of things generally isn't super great. My positive outlook?

Microsoft now owns #Wasteland and #Fallout. They also own Obsidian (Where Feargus works) and inXile (where Brian Fargo works). I'm now interested in what might actually be possible for the future of the Fallout series.

Microsoft can justify it pretty easily, to me. Before the acquisition, they had Turn 10, RARE, 343 Industries, Mojang and Ninja Theory.

I might be missing someone (Playground Studios?) but nobody there is a prolific studio. Whilst they all have track records, it's a track record in very specific things. This purchase gives Microsoft a much broader portfolio and, it can be argued, they don't have to tinker with anything.

@cupofdoom: Well, Bethesda owned MachineGames, iD, and whoever the hell they paid to do Rage. They pretty much had every major story-driven action FPS AND Arkane doing the Deus Ex/System Shock style ones.

Hell, Ubi (fuck those assholes) are the source of most of the open world ubi-style collectathons.

Even Sony more or less compete with themselves between spider-man and god of war and the like.

As long as the overall market is not oversaturated, getting paid for multiple games in a genre is a very smart play

Bethesda have been great of late, as have ID! So many recent classics! In case you weren't aware I was being sarcastic

Sony should have bought Sega a long time ago, and Atlus. I never thought I'd live to see Yakuza on Xbox

It's me, I'm one of the 3 other Dishonored guys(okay being honest, 2 is still on my too play list, but 1 is one of my favorite games of the 360/PS3 era).

@shindig: Obsidian Entertainment (recently: Outer Worlds and Grounded) but yeah not a huge prolific company either.

Looking forward to Amped 4 starring Master Cheif and Doom Guy.

I totally forgot Bethesda was working on that new Starfield game. Wonder when that's coming.

@nick: Thanks. I forgot about them.

On the flipside, Sony has Santa Monica, Naughty Dog, Digital Polypony, Insomniac, Sucker Punch, SIE. Not exactly a diverse lot either but they had the market share and other exclusives to make up for it. This is a way for Microsoft to make up on software sales what they'd lose in terms of boxes in homes. They don't have to push exclusives when the money's coming to them so they don't need to put pressure on Sony in that way.

Two different means' for the same end.

@shindig: on the surface sony isn't super diverse but they basically cover a very wide range of open world games, car games, character action-ish games, and naughty dog games.

It is sort of reminiscent of MS near the tail end of the 360 and start of the xbox one. They only really had shooters and Dead Rising. At the time that seemed fine since story oriented FPSes/TPSes dominated the previous gen but both of those died almost overnight (I blame Killzone Shadowfall for being so incredibly generic) and it left them in a really bad place. I want to say that Bethesda basically have spent the past gen getting back to the point where people want story oriented shooters rather than just CoD and Arkane (even if they are less shooty more explorey) were one of the casualties.

I would still say Sony have a lot more diversity in their assortment since "open world game" is a lot broader than "cover shooter" but if we suddenly decide we want tight narrative games they are screwed. But that is very unlikely

Yeah, Sony has a lot more reach into Europe and Japan. The latter's almost uncontested, at this point. I also forget they have Baseball. I might even say Sony's got a better appeal for the indies. Oh, Hello Games.

This news was a bit hidden in the ZeniMax announcement, but apparently Game Pass now has over 15 million subscribers with 5 million having been added in the last six months.

Big deal for sure. Feel like Bethesda has been on the cusp of becoming a major player, but has always fell a bit short. Their E3 presentations have always felt a little weird, like we already know you got a new Doom game coming out, and some DLC for Fallout, did they really need a one-hour press conference to announce that? So for Bethesda, the deal makes sense, and hopefully Microsoft can help them out in areas where they've struggled, like releasing games in a functional state. Whether Microsoft gets a good return on this depends if they can maintain talent and creativity there and they won't try to milk Fallout to the ground like they did Halo.

From a competition perspective, it's obviously not great for Sony and I hope these kinds of megadeals where they buy multiple studios and IPs in one swoop won't become too common. With Sony recently announcing Final Fantasy 16 as console-exclusive I wonder if we are starting to see a bigger rift between Japanese and Western ecosystems. At least that would be one way we could tell the consoles apart from each other.

Have Obsidian/inXile finish Van Buren.

@shindig: MLB The Show should be going multi platform starting next year.

@cupofdoom: That is one of the appeals of the Game Pass system that gets overlooked a little I think is the need for sales to dictate games development pressure in some ways possibly being eased. If a game is a flop it doesn't destroy everything and if its more niche and takes a while to catch on that's cool too.

But of course it takes a good vision still to guide things. Phil's been doing a great job I think so hopefully he sticks around there.

I can't help but feel that games being exclusive on a "case by case basis" is just some vague nonsense in order to gin up more console pre-orders. "Better get an Xbox tomorrow because who knows what consoles Elder Scrolls will be on now!".

@morningcoffee: I'd bet starfield is 2022 or 23, late next year at the VERY earliest but I'm betting it'll come out later.

@toughshed: Exactly. No way Obsidian tries making a (great) game like Grounded without that safety net. Gamepass is a godsend. Microsoft provides a safety net, allowing these developers to take risks and they create more content for gamepass. Everyone wins.

@toughshed: Important note: Phil won't be at Xbox forever, neither will the current executives and leadership at Microsoft. New CEO's / leadership can bring radical changes, both good and bad.

I mean... look at Apple. Steve Jobs returned to Apple, took Apple (literally) out of the gutter onto insane heights of profitability and success. But since Job's died, Apple has been stagnant and uninspired.

I can live without Bethesda games. The only Bethesda released game I truly enjoyed was DOOM 2016. The rest of their game catalogue is not really for me.

EDIT: I did also enjoy the two newest main Wolfenstein games. Oh well, guess I won't get to play the finale chapter then.

That being said. It would be nice to see Sony do something drastic. Microsoft have been doing a lot of acquisitions and some have "hurt" more than others. The biggest loss for me is Double Fine.

There will always be console exclusives, there has to be in order for a specific console to be attractive compared to the competition, but these acquisitions of previously multiplatform developers mostly hurt the consumer in the end.

I'm probably still gonna end up getting a PS5 since I tend to like Sony's exclusives more than Microsofts. If I ever get a second console it will be a Nintendo console. Not an Xbox.