That may mean that those games appear on the PlayStation 5. Image: Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks Will Bethesda games still appear on PS5?Īs I said, Microsoft will need to find a way to justify the humongous budgets of Bethesda’s biggest titles.
Concept art from the upcoming game Deathloop. To put it another way: Smaller and medium-sized studios were ideal acquisition targets for Microsoft over the past couple of years as it focused on concluding the Xbox One era, but with Microsoft’s recent and dramatic expansion of storefronts and services, it may have the tools to financially support and distribute Bethesda games at its current scale. It has a broader means of distribution, which could favor an increased scope of its internal projects. So Microsoft may be in a better position to make this acquisition than was immediately obvious. In the past year, Xbox evolved from a console to a brand.
Purchase microsoft visual studio 2018 android#
Just this month, Microsoft released another first-party game on the Nintendo Switch it launched Xbox Game Pass for PC and it granted public access to its video game streaming service, xCloud, which allows subscribers to play a bunch of “Xbox” games on Google’s Android devices. That said, Microsoft doesn’t seem interested in Xbox exclusives anyway. I struggle to imagine Microsoft making back the budgets of games like Starfield and the next Elder Scrolls by making them Xbox exclusives.
Bethesda has historically made humongous bets on expensive games, making its money back (and more) by selling its most successful games on every platform possible, then selling remasters, remakes, and VR spinoffs. Microsoft can now make Fallout New Vegas 2 happenīethesda is the opposite brand of game creator. The company has recently presented itself as the practical publisher, with no better example than its acquisition of the reliable but not-particularly-exciting-anymore Minecraft. I’ve never thought of Microsoft as a publisher to spend and lose lots of money on mega-expensive blockbusters. Compare the latest Gears of War titles and Halo Infinite with projects like The Last of Us Part 2 or 2018’s God of War.
Outside the acquisitions, even Microsoft’s biggest releases tend to feel more calculated and less expensive than their Sony counterparts. Until today, I’d assumed Microsoft planned to create more games, albeit smaller ones, incentivizing players to maintain their Xbox Game Pass subscription with a reliable stream of new releases. These studios, broadly, have focused on projects smaller than the typical AAA release. Since 2018, Microsoft has acquired several game developers separate from the collection of Bethesda studios. I’ll say that it’s a strange fit, going off Microsoft’s most recent acquisitions. Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks Is Microsoft a good fit for Bethesda? Its biggest upcoming games - the very-long-in-development Starfield and the feverishly anticipated new Elder Scrolls game - don’t have release dates, and have been rumored to be years from completion.Ī scene from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim. The company has had the occasional success, like this year’s Doom Eternal, but some of Bethesda’s biggest releases have been ports and VR adaptations of the now 9-year-old Skyrim. Video game publishers keep their sales numbers quiet barring tremendous success, so it’s tough to say how well Rage 2, Wolfenstein 2, or Wolfenstein: Youngblood performed, though the sales information that made it to the public wasn’t promising, to say the least. The online iteration of the Fallout series, Fallout 76, debuted in 2018 and is still trying to find its sea legs nearly two years into its existence. In 2017, the company shipped the much-delayed Prey, along with The Evil Within 2, neither of which found massive commercial success. Pair this turmoil with the performance of recent video game releases.īethesda’s marquee video games have struggled in the back half of this console generation, beginning in 2016 with the underperforming Dishonored 2. And the late Robert Trump also served on the board, until his death in August. Here’s what’s more concerning: The ZeniMax board also includes former CBS chairman Les Moonves, who resigned from that position in 2018 following multiple allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. A review of the Xbox One at the end of its life