Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda has left several people curious about the future plans for the company, mainly if Bethesda games will ever come to the PlayStation console in the future. Honestly, this was not helped by early on responses that suggested their games ‘could’ but there were no plans, but that they will always receive preferential treatment on their new home console, should they end up being ported. This has only happened in the case of games that were announced already with multi-console releases.
Bethesda’s Pete Hines and Xbox’s Aaron Greenberg discussed this as part of Gamescom, and their responses have been pretty in line with what we already know. This question was posed primarily in response to Starfield, which was confirmed as an Xbox exclusive back at E3 which had been rumored for a while prior. Even though this was kinda expected, it didn’t stop some people from getting upset.
Pete Hines stated during the interview:
I have no idea how to state this in a way when … I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. It doesn’t exist. It’s not like I know it and I just don’t want to tell you. I don’t know.
Before going on to say that PlayStation fans might not be completely shut out in the future. He said:
There are Xbox brands that exist on other platforms, first and foremost. I think that’s important to note. Minecraft didn’t just stop existing on anything once Mojang got bought by Xbox. It’s a massively played game on all of these other platforms. It’s not a, ‘Sorry, you’re never going to get to play anything by Bethesda again.’ Certainly, there are going to be things that you’re not going to be able to play.
Starfield, it was announced as a thing that’s an Xbox exclusive. I don’t know if I would go so far as to say you’re done ever playing stuff on PlayStation. But again, I don’t know the answer to that right now.
Greenberg on the other hand was more caged with his responses, not wanting his words to be misconstrued. this ultimately happened as people used his words to suggest he was saying that Starfield was coming to PS5 at some point post-launch, which does not seem to be the case.
We have tried to be as clear as possible, not a timed exclusive, this is simply where the game is being made. 💚
— Aaron Greenberg 🙅🏼♂️💚U (@aarongreenberg) August 30, 2021
As it stands now Bethesda produced games are not going to disappear as of yet with Deathloop, and Ghostwire: Tokyo set to release as PlayStation console exclusives since deals were in place prior to the acquisition. Bethesda was purchased by Microsoft as a way to bolster their first-party portfolio, though they state they are mindful of how this purchase affects the community as a whole.
“We’re not saying you have to buy an Xbox to play those games,” Greenberg also stated, reminding games that the games will also be releasing on PC. Meaning that people who are not Xbox gamers are not entirely blocked out from enjoying Bethesda games.
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