Hopefully this will lead to some leadership shake-up. Between Fallout 76, Wolfenstein Youngblood, The Elder Scrolls: Blades and others, their recent output have done a lot of damage to their reputation in my eyes. They used to be a quirky bunch of studios you couldn't get too mad at for their technical fumbles, because they were ambitious and made games other publishers tend to not touch, and do it with a bit of can-do heart.
These days, they've become a bunch of buggy, messy microtransactions-laden plop peddlers, and any pass I might give them before has become immediate suspicion. Doom Eternal has refilled the redemption jar a little, but even that whiffs of live service microtransaction garbage when you're not focusing your eyes on the good bits, as if they're bursting at the seams to be as shitty as we know they can be, but are gritting their teeth behind their smiles lest we flay them alive again.
Anyway, we won't see Xbox/PC exclusive Bethesda games for a couple of years; current agreements will have to be honoured. As for the future, Starfield is 50/50 to go exclusive, while TES6 will definitely go exclusive.
Microsoft tend to like specialisation; 343 does Halo, The Coalition does Gears, Turn 10 does Forza Motorsport, etc. The likelihood of cross-company collaboration is therefore low, but still possible. I could see a cautious Microsoft allowing some Obsidian folks to possibly consult and help out a little with Starfield and TES6, at most. However, if Microsoft were to be bold, I could see Obsidian cancelling Avowed altogether and doing TES6 instead, while Bethesda focus on Starfield. Again, highly unlikely, but that's what a bold Microsoft would do.
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