I’d rather hear them say that they think that they can make more money by having the games be multiplat, everyone understands a corp being greedy, but saying something like “friends at PlayStation” would literally make me think that somehow the leadership at Xbox had been brainwashed.
Every company is greedy but Microsoft being a trillion dollar company, I would like to think that for Spencer and those underneath him that it’s much more than just being about making as much money as possible. I understand it from a stockholder/investor standpoint but at some point, to invest so much money into something, I would like to believe that they’re also doing it because they want to strive to be the best at what they’re doing.
On a related side note - they could always say - “we’ve decided to make all of Bethesda’s games multi-platform in order to make more money and with our friends and buddies at Sony, we feel that we will be able to do just that”. Hehehe. lol.
Bottom line, if they do not intend to make exclusives then they just need to go full on 3rd party and be a gamepass app and drop their hardware. No reason to have hardware if there’s no reason to get in that ecosystem and they could sell an absolute ton of gamepass subscriptions everywhere because I don’t see anybody holding a 3rd party subscription service off their platform.
Otherwise they need to make the games exclusive and push people into the Xbox ecosystem to move consoles, subscriptions and get more money from digital store purchases in their ecosystem.
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Hardware is an entry point to gamepass not the other way around. Once people start to understand this and it seems a slow burn then people will realise that the strategy is built entirely around a services and software model. Should PlayStation allow a version of gamepass on their system then absolutely nothing will be exclusive. Because Xbox aren’t driving hardware with gamepass it’s the other way around.
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While exclusive do matter, it’s not like there are plenty in production from XGS as well? Even without Bethesda xbox has some amazing stuff in the work. (Stuff I put over Bethesda games) I love Bethesda too.
I also think most from Bethesda will be exclusive, but if Bethesda is really the all end, why even investing in Xbox at the first place?
Not in context of Playstation. Playstation is not stopping producing GOTYs, not stopping getting more games than Xbox. Basically it loses nothing, while Xbox constantly losing stuff left and right.
I mean Sony even paid for Street Fighter V and it never come out on to Xbox. Hell, some games like Guilty Gear are not even coming to Xbox either. So making even time exclusivity is extremely generous.
Another Skyrim release??? Todd, that madman.
Final Fantasy 14 says hi
And who cares about them?
I do think we have to keep in mind that MS could be going with more “case by case”. Let’s just say next week (hopefully tomorrow) they don’t give real clarity on exclusivity, we’re definitely going to see a repeat of last year where the media kept asking what was going to happen.
TES VI may still be years away, but this question will definitely be asked, will Phil then say “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there”? I don’t think that would be a good look. Ideal would be if they can give a crystal clear plan. Something like…he mentions all the studios and says they will all be making games for Xbox & PC only now.
That Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo will be honored, and if the plan is to let games like The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 stay multiplatform and will get updated, along with that future games by Zenimax Online will be too…say that too.
Like some here have said, they don’t believe Phil will commit 100% to exclusivity, but that’s going to make answering questions like “is the future of Elder Scrolls singleplayer games now going to be Xbox and PC exclusive?” or “Will all of BGS’s biggest franchises only see the light of day on Xbox & PC?”… very tricky.
So what makes Sony moneyhatting games if they have also plenty in production? Xbox should not be the nice guy - not only it provides the cheapest entry points in gaming, it also provides plenty of options for that. Not to mention backwards compatibility, crossplay and crossporgression features. What can be more nice even?
They should use FFR example and stop mentioning other platforms altogether. But they are still trying not to burn the bridges with Nintendo for example. They will never be able to move forward without some drawing the lines and “case by case” basis is not the line.
Xbox doesn’t have a great marketing team. Even when introducing coolest features, they cannot even deliver them with a blast. They should learn how to read people’s expectations or something.
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Hey I’m just talking for myself. I also think Bethesda games being exclusive is the right choice. However if it won’t it’s not going to affect me.
Here are my 3 different tiers of things in terms of excitement or disappointment:
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Ideally they will make all future Bethesda games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem beyond the current agreements and services based games already launched onto PlayStation (e.g. Fallout 76). I don’t say this for console war reasons, rather it would be a major stake in the ground that Xbox is in this thing to win it. While in immediate terms I may agree with some that for a hardcore Xbox fan it may not impact your expected experience negatively in the short term (other than console warriors dunking on Xbox for being stupid) due to Xbox Game Pass in particular, this move absolutely does not provide the type of momentum for Game Pass and ecosystem growth that is better for my favorite gaming platform in the future. And I don’t mind saying that clearly either, as corporate decision makers can be dead wrong or we wouldn’t have gotten the Xbox One launch in 2013.
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While this wouldn’t be as exciting, making it clear that any big Bethesda games from existing IPs (Starfield would not count here as it is a new IP) will be 2 year exclusives on the Xbox ecosystem which is more than large enough to provide multiple options to play the games wouldn’t feel like a complete screwup. This is the scenario where the PlayStation platform is treated like a platform to port existing IP games onto down the road for the additional revenue, but at least it still maintains the incentives to grow Game Pass and the Xbox ecosystem as millions of PlayStation fans would not want to wait that long to play those games. I could at least live with this type of scenario.
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Releasing all big Bethesda games onto the PlayStation platform day and date would be mindboggling to me, and it would show a big miscalculation IMO that Game Pass in particular and the Xbox ecosystem overall can continue to grow at the desired levels just based on the value proposition when these games will be available to purchase on PlayStation anyway. Heck you might as well let Sony pay you a king’s ransom for the next Elder Scrolls marketing rights while you are at it then
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Number 3 won’t happen. “Case by Case” automatically rules that out.
Am I wrong in thinking that Bethesda can definitely bring Xbox to higher levels than ever before? Maybe even get back to Xbox 360 levels in terms of how they had been market leader for a good while? Even in my country, The Netherlands, which is 100% a PS country.
Xbox should not underestimate the cards they have in their deck now. By making Xbox the home, only home for Bethesda their name will grow immensely. Once it’s time for TES VI to shine all eyes will be on Xbox, because this is a franchise that generates crazy levels of hype. This can also mean that more developers will start taking notice and actually bother with the platform/service.
Maybe they will come close to being market leader again and that would be amazing for them. Going from almost giving up on Xbox to being a true force to be reckoned with is quite something . I can’t help but think Phil thinks of it this way as well, not only to get the huge franchises like TES, Fallout, Doom day and date on Game Pass. You want Game Pass to keep growing, you don’t do that by sharing or giving up your best cards.
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THIS a thousand times, but I guess that we will see whether the Xbox decision makers view the world that clearly or want to hug it out with the broader gaming community too much 
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Hardware AND Game Pass are both entry points to the whole Xbox ecosystem and that includes their cut from game sales, peripherals, DLC, MTX e.t.c. If MS only cared about Game Pass and only that then why is a (competitively priced) more powerful machine than the competition like the Series X a thing? why try to go after the core gaming audience? they could surely priced the Series S even more aggressively at say 250-280 euros and become a “Wii but with a subscription” accessible, casual-focused first and foremost proposition. If things were that simple then why MS still hasn’t an Xbox Vault sub on Switch and Playstation? why not port their big IP’s as well (I am pretty sure that Sony and Ninty wouldn’t say no to Halo, Gears and Forza…)? hell why even spend money on making a core game like STALKER 2 a timed exclusive if you don’t want to bring the core audience on your consoles?
The core gaming audience are the best customers and MS knows that very well, just compare what a casual player who plays games on his phone via Xcloud would spend a year in games and what a core console player would. Also it’s still not proven that casual gamers who play 2-3 games a year are willing to pay 150 euros/dollars a year for a sub on top of giving ~200 euros for their yearly new purchases (and I am not counting DLC and MTX). Casual audience is not something that MS could solely rely on and Wii is a big example of this.
And the funny thing is that even if MS is mainly focused on services and software having people locked in your ecosystem is the best way to prepare the ground for something like that. What do you think in a few years from now where streaming will be the most popular way to play games are the chances that Playstation owners will abandon their digital libraries, friend lists e.t.c. when Sony has a sub like Game Pass/Xcloud and go to MS? the more you are invested to an ecosystem the harder it is to change sides…especially with how digital purchases become more and more common.
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Let this nightmare end this week PLEASE.
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If Xbox could get gamepass and all that goes with it on the switch or PS they’d do it in a heartbeat. No questions asked no arguments it would be there faster than you can say ‘console exclusive’. They aren’t on there purely because of Nintendo and Sony not MS.
Attractive hardware helps them breach into the console space and maintain their presence because that’s important in driving the gamepass subscriptions.
I’m not saying that gamepass is all they care about merely that they are making hardware to drive people towards their services and software not the other way round. I don’t think they believe in the same model as Sony and people just need to make their peace with that in my view. But if you are looking to accelerate gamepass you don’t port it for devices and ecosystems that haven’t incorporated gamepass in my view.
the “case by case” statement was before the acquisition was closed. maybe this week has already changed. but the “Case by Case” that MS is talking about is
things like TES Online, Fallout 76 etc. will still have multiplatform support.
i see it like this 
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“Case by case basis” is the most logical thing. Lets say id Software wants to rule the world with a f2p Battle Royale shooter, of course you release this on every platform in this galaxy 