The behemoth which is Bethesda/Zenimax has been acquired by Microsoft this afternoon for a staggering $7.5 billion. This means that future games will be available on Xbox and Game Pass Ultimate for PC and Android. Hopefully the current upcoming releases will remain unchanged such as DOOM Eternal which is already nearing the end of its development on Nintendo Switch. How team Xbox will handle upcoming games such as the next Elder Scrolls and Fallout etc is unknown as they are now part of Xbox Games Studios so it is likely they will be Xbox, PC and smartphone via Game Pass Ultimate.
Always expected them to be bought up. They were never THAT big.
Hehe :D
it is literally the biggest
Was joking mate. I was really taken by surprise.
so was i
Not a fan of this at all. I am hoping the plans going forward with their acquisitions is that they will still be making consoles, but also acting as a multi-console publisher like they are kinda doing now on Switch. MS has some nasty DRM policies when it comes to game hardware, so I really don’t want them buying up so many companies left and right like they have if they are going to make so much talent restricted to their hardware. At least with Sony, many of the companies they bought had been ones that had essentially been working on first-party style games in the first place before being purchased, so they were not really taking away the ability for many of these companies to spread out across various platforms. MS on the other hand has just been buying up every company it can it seems, almost like EA in a way. Hopefully their next console will be more similar to their first 2 rather then the One going forward if they keep this up, but I doubt it.
MS can be real bad when they first are… bad. But they’re also real consumer friendly when they want. But we can’t forget all their sins just because they own an IP we love. It’s not how it works, I do agree. But am I rooting for MS to gain a bigger share in the console market. I don’t want to see them leave. But if you think about it, many of peoples favourite games are exclusives. I do believe making your game available to as many as possible is the right thing to do (which lets be fair, MS isn’t that bad in that area), but exclusives tends to be the best game IMO. I do believe MS can do a lot of right with Bethesda (I really don’t like their games, except Doom) but look at Obsidian. They’ve done great, and even though OW was started before MS, we all like the game and it doesn’t feel rushed at all (Switch version is another thing). And hey, Spencer said they’re going to let games be released on PS5.
“I do believe making your game available to as many as possible is the right thing to do”
I can’t work this out in any way that makes sense to me. Nobody is prevented from buying the platform the game is on. So all you really mean is that you think the game ought to be available to everyone at a low price, without having to buy additional hardware. But then, the game would be available to more people still if you could lower the price of the game, so you should slash the budget of the game so you can lower the price right? And really, free is the most universally available, so its just “right” to make all games free to play so they are playable by as many people as possible?
I just can’t see any way you can apply the standard objectively without quickly coming to a very silly place. Should EA still be making PS2 versions of Madden, because discontinuing that version would make the game available to fewer people? There’s no iOS version of World of Warcraft, wouldn’t it be the “right” thing to do to make one so its available to more people?
The only way I can make sense of it is if what you really mean is “The right thing to do is to pay the competition a licensing fee to put your game on their console to weaken your own platform, specifically to discourage people from buying your products” which strikes me as a very obviously unreasonable request.
It was ment as a way to make games accessible to everyone. People with little income might not afford 2 or more consoles etc. Price doesn’t need to be low. But if the games are highly priced it will be a higher barrier for someone. Not that every developer must build their games around being cheap enough for everyone, but that’s what sales are for. Don’t think to hard on what I type, I’m just a random dude from Norway with limited English capabilities making comments on a Nintendo site ;)
You make me think about the scene from Star Wars Episode III where Obi-Wan tells Anarkin Sith thinks in absolutes :P Not making fun of you. I do understand that there are nuances to every aspect of life, and game production as well. What I thought about was that if a game is doable within reason on a game system – within reason –, it would be nice to have it both places, no? Does it play on Xbox? Might play on PlayStation then. Should MS water down Halo Infinite for Xbox One? I don’t think it’s the best move for Series X, but it’s nice for those how can’t purchase it, right? I never argued for something as extreme as supporting PS2 to this day. And I do like exclusives games because I’m privelegde to have enough for multiple console. I got friends I could play with this generation because they were stuck with their 2014 Xbox One. I bought MH World for Xbox so I could play with him even if my normal crew was on PS4. Chill dude.
Sony studios dont make games for other platforms what are you talking about?
People complain all the time. At least some of you will stop with the”Xbox has no games” nonsense
I don’t think people will stop with saying “Xbox has no games” when all of these will still be on PC. They still don’t have any real exclusives.
😐
Please tell me this won’t be like what happened to RARE…
Well. you can not kill something that is already dead.
But if MS has the studios revise WET, I would buy their console.
Though seems unlikely, as it seems I am the only person in the world that liked that game.
Also making Fallout not suck would be cool.
Ok know Nintendo can buy from Xbox the moon studio
Currently in first Fallout 4 playthrough.
It’s actually a pretty damn fun game.
I hope this now means Smash bros can’t have both Master Chief and Dovahkiin in Smash. I have both of their franchises.
Well that’s one way to get exclusives … hope Elder Scrolls will remain multiplat or that Microsoft remains friendly with Nintendo at least.
this is great news for Nintendo. bad news for sony. see, Xbox loves Nintendo, even as recently them just releasing ori 2 on the switch. Xbox sees Nintendo as a market they can’t access otherwise. sure they have PC, they have the cloud on android, they have a cheap next-gen system, they also have the most powerful next-gen system, both of which have better performance than the ps5……
BUT they do not have access to the market the switch has, which is games anywhere, on the go, no internet needed, and it’s also a system that family and friends buy to use on the go. so I think this will just signal even better support for Nintendo getting Bethesda games.
now if only Tim Schafer could take the reigns on Rare IP. would love to see him tackle banjo or conker.
i think Nintendo should use this time to buy some studios them selfs and expand on what Nintendo offers (not just more game ip and studios). but i think they should buy something like platinum.
Platinum would make the most sense since they already act like they belong to the company. One thing I’d like to see them buy is Capcom, but only if they don’t interfere with the games too much.
i know thats an easy one to call. but i think capcom works better as a third party. i mean the resident evil games are always going to push graphics, so i think being with Nintendo would really get in the way honestly. same with konomi
Once upon a time, Rare ware was an independent studio who created amazing games that not only compete with first party developers but also beat them.
At their peak, Microsoft bought Rare ware and turned it into Rubbish ware. There’s no way this story has a happy ending.
You say that like Bethesda hasn’t had a record of shoddy games already.
this is a very different Microsoft, phill has changed every part of it. rare will be back, phill has even stated he wants rare ip to come back. course development time is going to take awhile. this is good news for sure.
Rareware already showed signs of going downhill with Starfox Adventures, and key people who made the company important already left the company shortly before the acquisition. It was also 20 years ago when Microsoft was new to the gaming scene, so I won’t be so sure of this being disastrous for Bethesda just yet.
What do you mean? Yeah sure once upon a time rare was independent, then they were bought by Nintendo who then sold them to Microsoft. I wouldn’t say they bought them at their peak either, the quality was just beginning to dip, albeit slightly. Peak Rare was 1994 -1999 imo, the last game they released for Nintendo before joining MS was Starfox adventures which was good but not great. There’s a reason Nintendo were ok with letting them go, they knew they were on the wane and cashed in and it proved the right decision. I feel like this is similar in a way. Bethesdas recent games have not been up to the previous standard, outside of Doom, and they’re on a bit of a downer which is why the owners took this money. Not sure anything too great will be missed.
Grant it, right b4 Microsoft did buy them, a good portion of the original team already left due to internal issues. So they already became more or less a “shell” by the time of the purchase.
That was how I’ve been hearing it went (on this very blog) with Rare, too.
Well this is certainly interesting. I wonder if Microsoft is going to continue to try and port their games to other systems like in the past, or start making games dedicated for their console now that they have a large amount of IP’s under their belt. I was so sure of getting a PS5 but now I’m waiting to see how things pan out.
Did not see this coming!
Times like this make me hope SEGA will never be bought out by anyone.
If Nintendo were to acquire Sonic, fan games, fan input, and titles like Sonic Mania would be DEAD.
Nintendo would probably make sure better Sonic games are made though. That’s why SEGA doesn’t interfere with fanmade stuff. They already have a bad enough rep as it is.
Remember F-Zero and Earthbound, also Giftpia, Captain Rainbow, Tomato Adventure, and Startropics?
At this point, you can’t say that Nintendo makes better games than most fan games (aside from a convenient device to play on).
Who cares? They bought Rare and didnt do nothing with it except kill the franchise inside the Umbrella of Rare. They just buy copanies just to keep from rivals Nintendo and Sony because they know those two would whip there !!!.
Rare was stupid to leave Nintendo. All that talent in 1998 to 2002 just to be dead. And Bestima is stupid to believe being bought buy Microsoft is really going to make them a better company.
Hmmmmm what will Sony do now? Microsoft just said “Checkmate.”
Weird move. Bethesda has been on a steady decline for the past 10-ish years.
I’m just glad I didn’t care anything about Bethesda. If they bought SEGA, Sonic the Hedgehog would be dead and buried forever. Along with all other SEGA properties. I wish Microsoft would just stop buying companies out. Some day they might actually buy one I do love, like when they bought RARE and killed them.