Microsoft has completed its purchase of the video game studio, Bethesda for $7.5 billion. To recall, the deal was announced back in September, which is when Microsoft announced that Bethesda’s future content will be “first or better or best” on its own platforms, hinting that the games will be launching on other platforms too. However, now the company has explicitly said that some of Bethesda’s new games won’t be coming to Sony PlayStation 5 or the Nintendo Switch at all. Also Read - Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 launched: Intel, AMD options offered
Xbox head Phil Spencer after the deal completed via an Xbox Wire blog post announced, “Gamers should know that Xbox consoles, PC, and Game Pass will be the best place to experience new Bethesda games, including some new titles in the future that will be exclusive to Xbox and PC players.” Also Read - Microsoft could hold major gaming event this month: Here's what we know
He also stated that the acquisition of Bethesda is the next step in the company’s attempt to building an industry-leading first-party studios team. Also Read - Cortana no more available on Android, iOS devices, will be limited to Windows 10
As of now, it is not known, which games will this apply to. According to Spencer’s statement, Microsoft will not be going back and removing already released Bethesda games from other platforms. Upcoming Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 could be the exclusives Spencer was talking about, or he could have just been talking about unannounced projects.
Today we officially welcome Bethesda to Team Xbox. Our goal is to empower the teams across Bethesda to create their greatest work and to learn from them as we deliver more games to more players around the world. Our work together begins now. https://t.co/Ul0jJ41Dr0
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) March 9, 2021
In his post, Spencer also mentioned that despite the change in business structure, Bethesda will continue to make games the way it always has. It is yet to be seen which all games will launch as Xbox/PC exclusives and which games will launch across other platforms also.
