Microsoft won’t name names, but it’s promising more multiplatform games as it continues its argument to buy Activision .
The question of whether future Bethesda games will ever be on a PlayStation console again has never been clear. Prior to the buyout’s completion, Microsoft said , then said there , and then changed its mind completely and said that the buyout was explicitly to get .
Not only has every post-acquisition Bethesda game been an Xbox exclusive but recent revelations about the show that a previously multiformat game became an Xbox console exclusive as soon as Microsoft took over.
This is a key part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) argument for why Microsoft can’t be trusted with , although the Xbox company has now said it intends to launch ‘many other’ games from Bethesda parent company ZeniMax for the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
This is the first time Microsoft has mentioned any such plan, which seems awfully convenient, and while they clearly want people to think they mean The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 they haven’t mentioned any specific names – so they could just as easily be talking about cheaply made spin-offs and the like.
Microsoft has already ruled out ports of and Starfield, which it says is, ‘keeping with the need to offer some exclusive content while mitigating the economic costs and damage to its player-focused brand.’
Considering it also admits to Redfall have ‘generated minimal sales,’ you’d think it’d be a bit more open to putting it on at least the PlayStation 5, to try and reach a wider audience. Then again, Redfall earned that PlayStation 5 owners may no longer be interested in trying it out.
As it stands, the only officially confirmed Bethesda games that don’t have specified platforms are The Elder Scrolls 6 and , both of which look to be many years away from coming out.
There’s also , but that’s technically never been formally announced. Bethesda’s marketing boss Pete Hines has just expressed enthusiasm for it.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s about potential exclusives seemed to suggest that established Bethesda franchises would still come to other platforms. This would make sense since the likes of The Elder Scrolls have established audiences on PlayStation and making an Xbox-only sequel risks cutting off a huge portion of potential customers.
However, Microsoft has avoided any definitive annoucement about whether The Elder Scrolls 6 will be multiplatform. Spencer seemed to imply in that the sequel would follow Starfield and be Xbox exclusive after all, and expressed confidence pre-buyout that Bethesda titles could .
Bethesda’s and both launched as timed PlayStation 5 exclusives before coming to Xbox, but that’s only because those arrangements were made pre-buyout and not as some goodwill gesture from Microsoft.
The FTC believes the fact that Microsoft hasn’t yet released a multiformat Bethesda title proves it will attempt to do the same with Activision Blizzard games.
Microsoft has repeatedly insisted it won’t, signing contracts to and , but time will tell if that will successfully convince the court or not.
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