The news about game company Microsoft acquiring ZeniMax rattled the whole gaming community a while ago, making some gamers wonder what will happen to Bethesda and its games now. Some suspect that Microsoft might just dictate what the studio will be doing and what consoles it will be on, while others thought that they will be given the freedom to choose which consoles they will be releasing their games on.
Microsoft Xbox Head Phil Spencer did, however, state a few weeks ago that if it were possible they would want Xbox exclusivity for Bethesda games, but that will all depend on them. Now here he is again talking in another interview with Gamereactor related to the same topic: the Bethesda deal.
Spencer first clarified that Microsoft has not acquired ZeniMax yet. What they have announced was their intention to acquire said company. “It is going through regulatory approval and we don’t see any issues there. We expect early in 2021 the deal will close,” he said.
The Xbox head did say that he is not in talks with Todd Howard and Robert Altman as of the moment and making plans for their future because he is currently not allowed to do that. He states that doing that would be illegal since the deal is still not complete. When asked if Bethesda’s games will be exclusive to their platforms, he said that it is not his job to do that. He cannot dictate what happens in the future.
Spencer said that he talked with Howard one time and discussed about what they want to do with this partnership. This is a discussion on what Howard wants to do and not about Spencer’s own plans for Bethesda, just to clear that up. Howard then said that “I wanna build the best games that I’ve ever built and I want the support of Microsoft to be able to do that.”
So ZeniMax and perhaps Bethesda agreed to this intention of acquiring the prior’s company so that Microsoft could support them in development. From what I could understand from his statement, maybe they saw how Microsoft has made other studios successful in development under them. Maybe this could make upcoming video game Starfield move forward quickly.
Interview source: Gamereactor