Bethesda Exec Teases New Game Consoles -- "I'm Privy To Some Stuff"

It appears Fallout and The Elder Scrolls studio Bethesda is among the development companies that have been briefed on the next wave of video game consoles. Bethesda marketing executive Pete Hines said in an interview that he knows "some stuff" about the new systems, but he can't share any details yet.

"I am curious to see what it looks like and how it's different," he told The Telegraph (via Yahoo). "I'm privy to some stuff which obviously I can't really talk about, but there is also a lot that I'm not sure on what it's going to look like. And more importantly how big a shift we can expect."

Hines said there was an easy-to-see shift in graphics quality between the Xbox/PS2 era to Xbox 360/PS3 because it was from "the old way" to high definition. That kind of upgrade was "so dramatic," Hines said, but the change between Xbox 360/PS3 and Xbox One/PS4 wasn't as as dramatic, he said. "The graphics folks that are super into it can certainly tell, but to the average consumer they were like, 'Ok it still looks good,'" Hines explained.

"How much of that will change [with the next consoles], I don't know," Hines said. "The rest of it doesn't matter to me because I'm not drawing art or coding or designing. What really matters is what the developers think. What do they need and what are the kind of power and features they are looking for."

Hines was also asked if he believes games will become more expensive to develop on the new consoles. He suggested that will be more expensive to make large-scale games like Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI, while smaller titles might not see as big of a jump.

One of Bethesda's upcoming games, Starfield, might skip PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, director Todd Howard said in June. Starfield will be followed by The Elder Scrolls VI, so it seems likely that the next Elder Scrolls game may also skip the current generation of consoles.

"Games now are so diverse that to say the cost of all games are going up is a little too broad. To make big triple A games like Starfield is not cheap. It never was," Hines said. "The team sizes are certainly bigger. Hell, back on Morrowind that team was 35 people. That's not even close to the size on Fallout 76. But then you have a game like [The Elder Scrolls Legends] which has a significantly smaller team than a lot of these other things. So it depends on what the game is and the size and the scope of it."

Microsoft has already confirmed it is working on multiple new Xbox consoles, while Sony's PlayStation 5 isn't expected to be out until 2021 or later.

Bethesda's next big release is Fallout 76, which launches on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in November. A beta will be available ahead of launch, starting in October. The game will have a very long tail, as Hines believes it will last until the end of days.