# Microsoft now owns The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 21, 2020, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160 "2020-09-21T17:47:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/21 "2020-09-23T21:33:29Z")
The acquisition doesn’t officially close until sometime in 2021. It’s possible they can’t say any more than they already have. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/22 "2020-09-23T21:33:32Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > So again I ask the question, If they plan to make them exclusive why are they being coy about it at the most critical time to influence sales? They literally announced the acquisition deal the day before the preorder, in part because they realized that people would realize that Xbox would get those games at the least in a timed exclusive if not full exclusive. I’m betting they haven’t figured out the extent to how they are going to do it (and likely they are going to make different considerations based on each game - look at some Xbox games that they’ve released for Switch), but you don’t buy a games company for $7.5billion to not leverage their games to sell more consoles. Not to mention they haven’t even announced which Bethesda games are going to be Gamepass (just a general Bethesda’s iconic franchises are coming to Gamepass)… you’d think they’d shout that from the rooftops as well? Likely because it hasn’t fully closed yet and those details are not ready to be announced. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/23 "2020-09-23T21:37:12Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > > [@wolfman](#): > > > > So again I ask the question, If they plan to make them exclusive why are they being coy about it at the most critical time to influence sales? > > but you don’t buy a games company for $7.5billion to not leverage their games to sell more consoles. Actually You certainly do if you don’t particularly care about selling consoles, and want to make game pass more desirable, plus the 5 million or so copies of ES6 you can sell to PS owners at $80, plus every other game. they will sell on playstation. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/24 "2020-09-23T21:38:49Z")
There is no evidence that Microsoft doesn’t care about selling consoles. You wouldn’t have created the most powerful console in history (and advertise that from the rooftops) if you just didn’t care. Not to mention - more Xbox’s sold, more likely to sell Gamepass. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/25 "2020-09-23T21:43:19Z")
I didn’t say the don’t care, I said they don’t particularly care. They are not very concerned about having a higher number of consoles sold then Sony. The abandoned that fight years ago. They care about making money, and having Bethesda game be exclusive costs them money. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/26 "2020-09-23T21:46:36Z")
But it doesn’t. Driving more players to the Xbox platform gives those players an opening to buy other Xbox games, which MS gets a percentage of as the platform creator. That is where the real money is in consoles. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/27 "2020-09-23T21:47:18Z")
Like I just said they made a substantially more powerful console than the PS5. If they don’t particularly care, they wouldn’t have bothered. And of course, more Xboxes = more Gamepass (sure PC Gamepass is leading to some growth, but the vast majority is Xbox). Timed exclusives, at the least, provide a very good selling point to Xbox and Gamepass. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/28 "2020-09-23T21:53:56Z")
TES I and II were PC games. Fallout 1 and 2 were PC games. TES III, IV, and V were PC games with a console port. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were PC games with a console port. All of these were true RPGs. Fallout 4 was a console shooter with a PC port. It wasn’t even a true RPG. Fallout 76 was a complete cash grab. Fallout 4 and 76 have both had me very concerned about the future of all Bethesda games. Bethesda used to be one of the top (or possibly THE top) RPG companies in the world. With Fallout 4 they completely abandoned their RPG roots and moved into the casual console gaming realm. Between Fallout 4 abandoning RPGs completely and becoming just a console shooter and Fallout 76’s blatant cash grabs, I expected TES VI to be a brain dead console game with very few real RPG elements, and filled with loot boxes and other cash-grab nonsense that would completely ruin the game. A part of me was hoping that Bethesda would return to its RPG roots with FO5 and TES VI, but now that they have been purchased by Microsoft, their primary focus is going to be on the Xbox. They’ll make a PC port of course, but it’s going to be like FO4’s PC port where you can tell that everything was designed for a console and all they did was remap the console buttons to a PC keyboard. They couldn’t even be bothered to put a real PC interface on FO4. One of the guys on a gaming channel on youtube managed to play completely through Skyrim without realizing that there was a civil war going on. That’s a casual gamer right there, and that’s the future of Bethesda, games that are so brain-dead that you can play completely through them without realizing what the basic plot is even all about. If you like casual gaming and not thinking too much about what you are doing (and there’s nothing wrong with that), then you may like future FO and TES games. If you like RPGs, then your best bet is to look elsewhere. Id Software didn’t start out as part of ZeniMax. They didn’t get gobbled up by ZeniMax until 2009. But their games have always been shooters. If you are a fan of Doom and Wolfenstein, things probably aren’t going to change much, except that you may have to buy future games from Microsoft instead of Steam. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/29 "2020-09-23T22:34:29Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > And why do you think Xbox doesn’t have console exclusives? What do you call Halo or Fable or Gears of War, or Forza, or the newly announced Avowed? I’d call them “games that are also being released on PC,” and therefore, not console exclusives. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2020, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/30 "2020-09-23T23:08:14Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > They’ve been making it. It was announced two or three years ago. I thought full production would not be happening until Starfield(still no release date) is released. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/31 "2020-09-24T03:03:12Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > > [@ISiddiqui](#): > > > > And why do you think Xbox doesn’t have console exclusives? What do you call Halo or Fable or Gears of War, or Forza, or the newly announced Avowed? > > I’d call them “games that are also being released on PC,” and therefore, not console exclusives. The term ‘console exclusive’ as it is being used these days does not preclude a PC release, but means it is only going to be on one console. The term has been used in both Xbox and PS reveals (So Horizon Zero Dawn is refered PS console exclusive but they’ve released it for PC and Halo is refered to as an Xbox console exclusive even though it’ll release on PC at the same time). ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/32 "2020-09-24T13:26:39Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I thought full production would not be happening until Starfield(still no release date) is released. All they’ve said publicly about either game is that Elder Scrolls VI would release after Starfield. All we know for sure is that both are “in development.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/33 "2020-09-24T17:16:29Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > The term ‘console exclusive’ as it is being used these days does not preclude a PC release, but means it is only going to be on one console. The term has been used in both Xbox and PS reveals (So Horizon Zero Dawn is refered PS console exclusive but they’ve released it for PC and Halo is refered to as an Xbox console exclusive even though it’ll release on PC at the same time). MicroSoft’s advertising department uses it that way, because they’re trying to get more people to buy Xboxs, and “console exclusives” move consoles. But if I can legitimately play a game on any platform that’s not an Xbox, that game isn’t an Xbox exclusive. I mean, this is literally why I haven’t bought an Xbox since the 360 and won’t any time soon, but intend to stay current with PlayStation. Any game I can buy for Xbox, I can buy for PC, but there’s a lot of games that you can only play on on a PlayStation console. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/34 "2020-09-24T17:18:27Z")
Doom Eternal was confirmed to be on Game Pass for Xbox in October and for PC before 2020 is out. Paying dividends already! (I have no idea if this timeline is related to the Bethesda purchase thing but thought it still fit into the thread) ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/35 "2020-09-24T18:12:06Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > MicroSoft’s advertising department uses it that way It’s used by the industry, including gaming publications, that way, not merely Microsoft. PlayStation also did the same in its reveal - naming FFXVI as a PlayStation Console Exclusive. For example: > **['Final Fantasy XVI' will be a PlayStation console exclusive](https://www.engadget.com/final-fantasy-xvi-ps5-playstation-console-exclusive-201229256.html)** > > Sony started its PS5 event with a bang. > [@](#): > > Sony didn’t waste any time in pulling out the big guns during its [PS5 showcase](https://www.engadget.com/sony-playstation-5-showcase-194629316.html). It showed off a bombastic trailer for _Final Fantasy XVI,_ which will be a PlayStation console exclusive. The trailer footage was actually captured on PC ( _Final Fantasy XVI_ will also be available on that platform), but it apparently emulates how the game will look on PS5. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/36 "2020-09-24T18:24:32Z")
A lot of the press around next generation consoles is just reprinting press releases from MicroSoft or Sony, so it’s not surprising they’ve picked up the language, but that doesn’t make it correct. Also, Square is being kind of cagey about whether a PC port will actually exist or not. They showed a game trailer that indicated a PC release, but subsequent to that, there’s been a lot of, “We’ll wait and see about other platforms.” FF games usually come to PC a few years after their console release, so I wouldn’t be surprised if FFXVI is PS5 exclusive at launch, followed by a PC port one to two years later. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/37 "2020-09-24T18:55:16Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > It’s used by the industry, including gaming publications, that way, not merely Microsoft. PlayStation also did the same in its reveal - naming FFXVI as a PlayStation Console Exclusive. Square Enix very pointedly only announced FF16 for the PS5, but the fine print in the trailer and the press release confirms that a PC and/or Xbox One Series S/X release is happening. But for now, it’s officially only coming to the PS5, which allowed Sony to trot out the “Console Exclusive” tagline. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/38 "2020-09-24T19:02:46Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > But for now, it’s officially only coming to the PS5, which allowed Sony to trot out the “Console Exclusive” tagline. I believe they are using the term Console Exclusive deliberately rather than Platform Exclusive. [https://www.gematsu.com/exclusives](https://www.gematsu.com/exclusives) > [@](#): > > - Platform Exclusive – Games released exclusively on a single family of consoles. > - Console Exclusive – Games released for a single console (or family of consoles) in addition to PC and / or smartphone. > - Timed Exclusives – Games exclusive to a single console (or family of consoles) for a limited time. ---
**Author:** ![Skunkdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c2a13f/32.png) [@Skunkdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skunkdog)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2020, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160/40 "2020-09-24T19:56:34Z")
I found @wolfman’s suggestion that Microsoft may be hedging their bets intriguing. I imagine most of us recall Sega’s exit from the console market when they failed to make headway even though their Dreamcast system was superior to other consoles of the time. They still had plenty of lucrative properties that they licensed or produced games for themselves. Exclusives seem to be a terrific revenue stream if you have to bail from the console wars. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/microsoft-now-owns-the-elder-scrolls-fallout-and-doom/921160.md?page=1)