Fans have been left wondering what will happen to The Elder Scrolls VI now that Bethesda has become an Xbox studio. While Bethesda had remained non-commital, Phil Spencer’s latest interview with GQ Magazine states he views that game’s exclusivity as being a similar situation to that of Starfield. In other words, the game may well be exclusive to Xbox and PC, though it’s “not about punishing any other platform.”
Starfield was confirmed to be an Xbox console exclusive during E3 2021, a decision for which Bethesda’s Pete Hines later apologized. The reason for the decision was so the studio could streamline development and become more focused. This is the thinking behind making The Elder Scrolls VI an Xbox exclusive title too. As Spencer explained:
It’s not about punishing any other platform, like I fundamentally believe all of the platforms can continue to grow. But in order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to bring the full complete package of what we have. And that would be true when I think about Elder Scrolls VI. That would be true when I think about any of our franchises.
What he means by the full package is incorporating everything Xbox Live has to offer, including Game Pass, cloud gaming, friends lists, and save states. This, of course, then makes it more difficult for games to be ported to other consoles that don’t offer these features or even offer separate specific features of their own like the DualSense controller enhancements.
While Spencer was more upfront about the potential for The Elder Scrolls VI exclusivity to be similar to that of Starfield, Bethesda has done its best to keep the hopes of PlayStation fans up. Todd Howard previously said it would be “hard to imagine” The Elder Scrolls VI being a console exclusive, but also refused to be drawn into any further comment. Microsoft is currently honoring the exclusivity deals that Bethesda had already agreed with PlayStation, like Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, but said any future decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.
[Source: GQ Magazine]
