So Bethesda games will be Xbox exclusive, but don’t expect Xbox to say that out loud.

Yesterday, a long interview did the rounds between Kotaku and Phil Spencer that included some pretty random stuff (can the S Series load games faster than the X Series due to smaller-scale textures?), But it’s also as close as Microsoft can. has gone so far as to say yes, his next big Bethesda games will be exclusive to Xbox and not to PlayStation.

And that’s probably the closest thing to them will be We got to say it, at least before the launch of Series X.

The breakdown of the exchange is that Kotaku asked Spencer if they could still recoup a $ 7.5 billion investment with huge games like Elder Scrolls VI that are not sold on PlayStation, which will undoubtedly move more than 100 million units this next generation.

Spencer responded point-blank, “Yes,” before elaborating:

“This deal was not made to take games away from another player base like that. Nowhere in the documentation we gathered was: ‘How can we prevent other players from playing these games?’ We want more people to be able to play, not fewer people to be able to play. But I will also say on the model, I’m just directly answering the question you had, when I think about where people will play and how many devices we had, and we have xCloud and PC and Game Pass and our console base, I don’t have to send those games to any platform other than the platforms we support in order for the deal to work for us. Whatever that means. “

So what does that really mean? What Spencer is saying without saying it directly is that yes, the great games like Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield and whatever Bethesda does next outside of existing deals, like Deathloop, will likely be Xbox exclusive.

But the definition of “Xbox exclusive” at this point doesn’t just mean the box. Microsoft is evolving Xbox, especially this generation, to represent a complete ecosystem that includes Game Pass and xCloud streaming. So in the future, “Xbox” will be thought of as less of a physical box and more of a complete platform ecosystem like Netflix. As in, you will play your “Xbox exclusives” on real Xbox, but also on PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, smart TVs, and anything else that can run them. Or are you willing to run them.

By default, that would seem to leave out rival consoles like the Nintendo Switch and PS5. I can perhaps see that Nintendo agrees to run Game Pass / xCloud on Switch, but Spencer seems to indicate that there could be some issues with that. But Sony? Yes, I don’t think so. And so by that definition, no, you won’t be able to play those huge Bethesda games on PS5 in the future, and Microsoft seems to think they can afford it.

And I mean, they can. Even if Microsoft follows the Netflix model and spends much more on content than it actually contributes, Microsoft is also one of the largest companies in the world and can afford to do things like that. They want to be the Netflix of this space, whatever the cost, and they want Elder Scrolls and Starfield to be active for them as Stranger Things and Cobra Kai are for Netflix, a motivating factor to sign up.

But again, don’t expect Phil Spencer to say flat out things like “No, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Starfield won’t be on PlayStation in the future.” That would weigh too heavily on the console’s war narrative that Spencer says he hates, even if that’s literally the action that is most likely to be taken to better position Microsoft in this market. It is just a business. And yes, there will probably still be Some Bethesda games coming to other consoles, but I would absolutely hope that Microsoft would save the biggest releases for the Xbox ecosystem so they can at least try to match Sony and Nintendo on exclusive parity, which has been Xbox’s biggest problem for three generations. . now.

We’ll learn more about all of this after the release of these new consoles, when the gloves really come off. For now, this is the most we’ll hear on the subject.

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