WHAT MICROSOFT OWNS SONY CANNOT GET" Bethesda founder Christopher Weaver

https://www.inverse.com/gaming/bethesda-microsoft-xbox-exclusivity-elder-scrolls-6-interview

"I was aware of the transaction and it is obviously gratifying news," Weaver tells Inverse.

For a bit more insight into the Microsoft-Bethesda deal, we spoke to Weaver via email, where he shared his thoughts on everything from what the deal means for upcoming games ("I have yet to meet an executive who does not want to accelerate the sale of a potential product") to the chances of Xbox exclusivity ("What Microsoft owns, Sony cannot get") to his opinion on the growing trend toward industry consolidation ("a product can only be as good as the creatives who make it") and disc-less gaming consoles ("High-speed internet will provide the bridge.")

MICROSOFT OBVIOUSLY GETS A LOT FROM THIS DEAL, BUT WHAT DOES BETHESDA STAND TO GAIN FROM SELLING?

I will try to answer your questions but with the caveat that I am now more of an academic, while also directing a project at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center for the Study of Innovation and Invention on archiving extensive oral histories of the creators of the computer game Industry. The point being that my focus has been on more large picture issues than any one company — even if it is the one I created.

I think this is an extremely interesting acquisition on the part of both groups. Microsoft deepens their bench instantly with one of the most experienced companies in entertainment software (during a time when video game sales are at an all-time high), and Bethesda gets the benefit of concentrating their creative firepower on software that feeds the Microsoft pipelines. A good prospective marriage of interests with a large domestic public partner.

WAS $7.5 BILLION A GOOD PRICE? DID MICROSOFT OVERPAY OR GET A GOOD DEAL?

As a private concern, Bethesda's internal numbers are closely held. Microsoft is a very sophisticated buyer and I am sure their due diligence supported the deal they negotiated with Zenimax.

MICROSOFT AND SONY HAVE SPENT THE LAST FEW YEARS ACQUIRING OTHER GAME STUDIOS. IS CONSOLIDATION GOOD OR BAD FOR THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY?

This is a difficult answer because it is so dependent upon the company being acquired. On the one hand, digital distribution, powerful tools, and sophisticated game engines have brought the cost of quality development down into the realm of the indies. At the end of the day, a product can only be as good as the creatives who make it. Properly managed, consolidation can provide a powerful mechanism for groups to share experience and "best practices." I do not think it is any accident that this announcement occurred so close to Sony’s PS5 announcement. There are only a limited number of proven creators of AAA. What Microsoft owns, Sony cannot get. There are many economies of scale that consolidation between the right partners has the capacity to provide, but the ultimate test will be evidenced by the quality of products produced over time.

WHAT DOES BETHESDA'S SALE MEAN FOR GAMES THAT ARE CURRENTLY IN DEVELOPMENT LIKE STARFIELD AND ELDER SCROLLS VI?

My understanding is that Microsoft respects Bethesda’s 34 years of proven ability to produce quality software and has promised to let Bethesda be Bethesda. Nevertheless, I have yet to meet an executive who does not want to accelerate the sale of a potential product. The trick is to keep those administrators at bay until a product is truly ready for prime time. Bethesda has been producing commercial software for a very long time. I have to believe Microsoft execs will be responsive to Bethesda's input.

IN 2002, MORROWIND WAS A MICROSOFT EXCLUSIVE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT BETHESDA'S RELATIONSHIP WITH MICROSOFT IN THE EARLY 2000S?

We had an excellent relationship with Microsoft in the late '90s/early 2000s. In fact, I was close to key members of the original Xbox development team and shared many thoughts for what their “next-gen" console could bring to gaming. That team took many leaps of technical faith and built a box that IMHO surpassed everything else at the time. While overseas sales might not have reflected that, when coupled with forward-looking moves to Xbox Live, and their prescient purchase of studios such as Bungie, Microsoft has proven they are a force with whom everyone in the industry must reckon.

MICROSOFT AND SONY BOTH OFFER CHEAPER VERSIONS OF THEIR NEXT-GENERATION CONSOLES WITH NO DISC DRIVE. IS THIS THE RIGHT DIRECTION FOR THE INDUSTRY?

I do not think the elimination of the disc drive will prove to be overly material. Both 9th generation consoles will have increased processing capability and SSDs. Once people get used to this short-term perceived limitation, they will realize a dramatic increase in reliability and responsiveness. High-speed internet will provide the bridge.

ANY OTHER THOUGHTS ON THIS MOMENTOUS DEAL? IS THERE ANYTHING OBVIOUS NO ONE HAS REALIZED YET?

The acquisition of Bungie acted as an important trigger for the success of the early Xbox. Depending upon how soon Bethesda can prime the Microsoft pipeline, I suspect Microsoft is looking at their playbook and looking to repeat one of its “best moves.” If the strategy works, it will be a brilliant counter-move against Sony. Users from around the world will be the ultimate beneficiaries of this deal. I wish them well.

@girlusocrazy: It means something to those still hoping for PS5 versions of their AAA games

Why are people desperate for confirmation of PS5 versions of these games?

Did Sony give a shit about other platforms when moneyhatting exclusives?

Ghostwire and that other game is PS5 timed exclusive. Did Sony say hey we still want PC gamers to enjoy this game..or did they just throw money at it being a PS5 exclusive? I hear Sony wanted timed exclusitivity on Starfield and Todd just laughed at Sony's face.

MS ain't doing that shit. At least theyre being open to possibilities and they actually support their business model. Which is one thats more consumer friendly.

Sony would be like' Lol PS5 only PC and xbox gamers go **** yourself. Yo Pc boyz..you..can have this in 6 months when people lose interest mmmkay bye.

Also Whats hilarious is because MS now own these studios...they can just put out incomplete PS5 versions and then sell complete Xbox and PC versions later for Ghostwire.

I will assert that no one pays 7.5 billion to put games on their main competitor’s platform. They will honor existing deals but once that is done all games will be MS/PC/Gamepass exclusive... I could see them putting games on Nintendo way before PlayStation. They don’t view Nintendo as a direct competitor.

I have no idea why some people think a Microsoft owned studio will release AAA blockbusters on Playstation. It isn't happening and that is all.

The Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield and Fallout 5 will not be on Playstation.

Maybe.

I think there is a much better chance we are going to see Bethesda's back catalog become GamePass exclusive.

Erm, the article even admits straight up that the guy left Bethesda in 2002, and hold very little equity today.

He's worth interviewing for history-keeping, but I don't think he's going to have much insight into what's happening right now.

Not saying he has much insight but people in the industry tend to keep connected even after departure.

I see these games being exclusive. MS doesn't put gears, halo, forza horizon, etc on ps4 which would garner them more sales. Why would Bethesda games be different? I'm good either way because I'll play them on pc, but I'm thinking MS doesn't buy Bethesda to put them on the competing hardware. They want people in their buying into their ecosystem. I could be wrong though.

@girlusocrazy: Cuphead is not owned by MS. Minecraft is another story. Lets see how long it will continue to come to PlayStation. MS is playing a much larger play to have Gamepass dominate the industry. Like Netflix they will pay for content to fuel it first. The future is Cloud streaming games and they’re building the war chest for it..

There is more than one ttboy :)...hehe

Sony has Minecraft, Azure access, Psychonauts 2, Deathloop, The Outer Worlds, Wasteland 3, Ghostwire Tokyo... yet YOU CANNOT HAVE IT SONY. YOU CAN'T MICROSOFT'S NICE THINGS!

@iambatman7986: You’re correct

@Pedro:

On a casual, gossipy basis, sure, but I strongly doubt he has any insight into current management and strategic decisions. That stuff tend to be confidential.

Name one AAA game released on the PS4? the ones you mentioned are pretty much indie games. The only one of interest there is Dungeons, i'd say there is a clause in the deal somewhere, however i don't see that with the Bethesda deal as they don't make indie games.

I'm fine with never playing a bethesda game.

@girlusocrazy: That’s Phil’s nice way of saying don’t hold your breath. Small titles may go to PS but honestly I don’t think they even think Sony is a real competitor. They’re so small and they don’t have Cloud technical chops. Hence Sony has to use Azure. MS is preparing for Apple - Google - Amazon or any FANG company. MS has 70 Billion cash on hand and they make 40 Billion free cash even after paying dividends.

If Gamepass reaches an inflection point of 50+ million subscribers it will be too late for anyone to do anything to stop them. Consider who wants to spend 70$ per game when they can spend 10$ per month for many games. Sony will be like Blockbuster trying to sell DVDs when everyone is streaming

I'm not moving goal posts, Ori and Cuphead are from developers that are not owned by MS and it seems the exclusivity deals ran out which is why they are on other platforms.

Minecraft was on PS4 before MS bought Mojang, and Cobalt a game from Mojang never released on the PS4, giving my opinion of there being a deal with the Minecraft sale more credence.

And there has never been a big AAA MS game released on the PS4, and i don't believe it will change with Bethesda and the PS5. Want further proof, well once Ninja Theory and Obsidian finished with their PS4 commitments the new games announced by them (Hellblade 2 & Avowed) are console exclusive to Xbox.

@girlusocrazy: They don’t want to piss off gamers... yet :)

Speak of the devil.. Here comes Amazon to the party

https://youtu.be/T6KCjecS3J0

Amazon’s new Luna cloud gaming platform is powered by Windows servers and Nvidia GPUs. Luna supports more than 100 games thanks to this Windows support, allowing developers to quickly move their existing Windows games over to an AWS instance and provide cloud streaming access to subscribers. This backend Windows support also allows publishers like Ubisoft to host their own digital services (Uplay) on Amazon’s Luna platform.

Amazon has confirmed to The Verge that Luna will run on a standard version of Amazon’s EC2 G4 server instance running Windows, complete with Nvidia’s T4 GPUs and Intel’s Cascade Lake CPUs. Nvidia’s T4 is based on the company’s Turing architecture that also powers the previous generation RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards. A single T4 GPU (Amazon might be using multiple) provides 8.1 teraflops of performance and support for Microsoft’s DirectX raytracing technology.

What this all means is that it should provide smooth gaming performance at the 1080p resolution Luna currently supports. 4K, which Amazon says is coming soon, might be more of a challenge for Luna on this hardware, especially without dialing down graphical settings in some demanding games.

Like i said it could have been part of the deal, as Cobalt didn't release on the PS4 but dungeons did, so any game within the Minecraft world needs to be multiplat. The fact they had to say game by games basis means they're trying to lets cows down gently lol.

@girlusocrazy: It’s the same logic that Netflix uses when it spends a billion on content for its platform. Shareholders would like to see a growth play and this is it..All Devices will get Gamepass.. just not Sony. Mobile gaming is big and MS and the investors will want a piece.. Again 7billion is nothing for Microsoft... For Sony its more money than they made in 1 year.

MS and Sony really shouldn’t be compared..

Lol at lems that think MS spent 7.5b just to give them ammo for list wars. Just like with Minecraft there's no way ES6, Starfield and Fallout 5 don't go to PS5. They're not leaving millions and millions of $70 sales on the table.

@NathanDrakeSwag: They don’t think selling 70$ disks is the future or even the present. Clearly they want everyone to be in their walled garden of Gamepass.. Just like Apple.. Once they’re in, MS will monetize and make billions not millions..

@girlusocrazy: They make so much money it doesn’t matter.. Phil would not be able to do this if the entire leadership was not on board. A write down of a billion is a joke to them... This is a huge company that has decided to go all in

That's just nonsense because Sony could put ND games on Xbox for the same reason. But in truth, the reason they don't is because putting those games on PC is a broader market than the section of consoles are.

You don't put your best games on competitor's systems.

@girlusocrazy: Yes we shall see...

It probably somewhat depends on where their system is positioned in terms of market share. Obviously they aren't going to put Halo or Gears on another platform. But losing systems can only support so many exclusives. This is why Xbox really cut back this prior gen, with the Xbox One being positioned so badly. The system was last place and couldn't viably support the production of more games. If Xbox tries to make these games exclusive and it doesn't work out, it would result in them having to shutter a bunch of these studios due to lack of financial performance. This is also probably why Minecraft didn't go exclusive, and they only paid $2 Billion for that. There was no way to recoup that $2 Billion if they made it exclusive.

It remains to be seen what happens here. It probably somewhat depends on where these consoles are positioned after a couple of years. After last gen's disaster, this is MS putting their chips on the table all-in.

We know what they'll do: titles like FO76 and TESO will remain on Playstation, and maybe some deals will be made with some titles, but the big boys will be only on Xbox and PC.

As I said, those titles have the same chance to come to Playstation as ND games have to go to Xbox.

So nothing.. great.

It's awesome that a deal of this magnitude went down, but this is a basic interview.

Plus, there's this:

No they're not cutting out those users (cows) who buy those games, it means those users (cows) would need a PC or Xbox to play these games, and thus bringing in more gamer's to its ecosystem.

MS are pushing Game Pass hard and with a 50% jump in subscribers in the last 6 months this deal will not only keep those customers but will be attracting more.

Investors, now you're reaching lol.

Cows and the whole "investors" and "profitability" thing always makes me laugh lol. Cows have been swearing up and down for years that Microsoft doesnt care about Xbox, investors are breathing down Satya's neck to cut it lose, MS will never open the warchest/acquire anyone, they dont care about Gaming enough."All they go after are small financially struggling devs, etc...... ".

The entire premise of Cows and their MS pocketwatching arguement hinges on an artificial handicap Cows have arbitrarily imposed on MS, that doesnt actually exist in the real world. This arguement that Microsoft would never use their resources for Xbox because "they dont make that much off the xbox division" is stupid, and Cows have literally been wrong on every prediction they've made about what Microsoft will and wont do, for the past 3 years. Literally every single thing, lol. Cows, you have zero credibility anymore.

That $7.5 Billion? That $7.5 is a tax write off for MS. They could, quite frankly, accidentally drop that on the sidewalk without noticing, and still post record profits on their next quarterly report. If TWO things have been made absolutely clear, is that

• Microsoft does not care about making a profit right now off of Xbox. These are long term moves.
• Microsoft values the Xbox division, and views access to this install base as important for the future of the company.

I wouldn't be surprised if that entire $50 billion they were prepared to blow on the TikTok deal that fell through, has now been entirely earmarked for Xbox.

Why should Xbox players be concerned if MS games come to Sony or not? If they do come to PS5 they won't disappear from the Xbox.

For that much money, I think it’d be silly to remain on just Xbox and PC. The money is in software and you’ll want that in as many hands as possible.

I can’t see the next Fallout or Elder Scrolls being limited to just MS platforms.

They'll be on the Xbox ecosystem, which includes Series X and S consoles, PC and tablets/phones. That makes up like 80% of the market and do not need to be on Playstation.

Really, no seriously really?

Then what's the point of the purchase then?

MS want people in their ecosystem, purchasing the games or subscribing to Game Pass, buying micro's/dlc etc, and why put them on PS5 because Sony get's a cut of the money from each sale on their platform, money Sony can use to fund games etc. Why would MS want to do that?

MS instantly buys games more iconic and popular than anything on PS and you Xbox hating fanboys are gonna have to pay MS to play them.....priceless

HaH

or just pretend to yourself they are shit and hope they get a low metacritic score