One of the major debates surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda Game Studios is the future titles from the company. Should they choose to they can make every other upcoming game exclusive to their own Xbox platforms or not? So far all the rumors circulating new game releases pointed out that the new titles will be exclusive. One of such games is an upcoming RPG from Bethesda called Starfield. It looks like Microsoft may have dropped a big hint for game platforms.
For a while, Microsoft kept things quiet and maintained that their game release decisions will vary from game to game and among studios. In one of the interviews, a Microsoft official said that if a studio has a good cross-platform idea and resources to implement it they will definitely go ahead with it. However, it is also fair to say that these platform exclusives are what bring value to consoles at the end. Therefore we can see Microsoft changing strategies in the future.
As for Starfield, Microsoft might have given users a big hint about their decision. A recent blogpost had the following statement from Sarah Bond, VP, Xbox gaming partnerships, and the ecosystem. “One of the things that has me most excited is seeing the roadmap with Bethesda’s future games, coming to Xbox console and PC, including Starfield, the highly anticipated, new space epic currently in development by Bethesda Game Studios.”
One thing to notice however is that Bond never used the word exclusive for this game. This means that a PlayStation release of Starfield might be on the way in the future. However, it does look like that is highly unlikely to happen. The game will only release for Xbox and Windows platforms.
Xbox Exclusives:
It looks like Microsoft has a big year ahead of them. Microsoft is currently working on two major games, Halo Infinite and Starfield. If they can get these two titles out in time they can really boost Xbox sales early in the year.
Part of Microsoft’s strategy of acquiring various game studios is the expansion of exclusives. Although Microsoft produces some of the famous exclusive games in the market PlayStation still has better titles. Microsoft plans to counter this by adding more game studious in their arsenal. They believe that by adding more and more studios they will be able to post even more games than before which will attract more customers.
This brings us to the point that although some of the studious like Bethesda did make games for other consoles in the past we will not see them making any in the future. This does not mean that they will completely discontinue all other platforms but the release ratio for others will obviously decrease.
Microsoft is currently working on a top of new features to bring to their new console generation. They have implemented new ownership policies with Smart Delivery. They also redesigned the Xbox smartphone application which now includes some useful new features. Microsoft is also trying to improve its Game Pass.
Microsoft has put a lot of capital into acquisitions lately and as time passes we will see them making some tough decisions. Even Bethesda games for example had Microsoft not bought this game studio. Its titles would have still made it to the Xbox. The studio could also come on Game Pass from day one. However, Microsoft did things differently they spent seven and a half billion dollars just to buy this studio. This huge amount of investment shows that the company has some future plans ready and we just have to wait and find out.