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The next 2 major Bethesda releases are officially Xbox console exclusives (Starfield and Redfall)

CamHostage

Member
tell me the publisher of Grand Theft Auto 5 please... and Red Dead Redemption 2 (hint, the answer isn't Take 2)
now go ahead an google who is the publisher of Persona 5 Strikers in Japan... or Persona 5 Royal (hint, the answer isn't SEGA)

go ahead, maybe a đź’ˇ will appear above your head and you'll say "ohhh... yeah... that's nothing out of the ordinary after all" :)
That's okay, I don't need to google it.

Atlas did not change its business practices in the merger of its company with SEGA; Rockstar Games is a publishing label of Take-2 Games, I don't think it really had any business practices to change (unless DMA had some plans that were for some reason different before and after?) In either case, all of the entities involved were able to make their own business plans independent of the parent for the good of their own business, which is my point, that if Bethesda Softworks is no longer open to engage in the business practices it has developed its expertise in over the past I'm going to guess 25 years, then there is no reason to keep Bethesda Softworks when the desirable Bethesda properties are its IP and its development studios.

Also, of course, SEGA and T2 are not manufacturers of their own game consoles (sadly for SEGA fans...) or streaming media services.

If Bethesda could make more money selling on PlayStation and Stadia and heck Nintendo in addition to Xbox (depending on what deal Microsoft is paying, which ultimately is all "MS money" anyway, but the way the finances flow and the books look to each's board is of course complicated; also more interestingly in these cases though is, depending on visibility, these games being exclusives could happen to elevate their profile and sell more copies with just the Xbox audience... though is it possible to sell "more" copies of an Elder Scrolls game when you're already selling all of the Elder Scroll games you can find platforms to put Skyrim on?), then it's in Bethesda's best interest to explore that option, unless it is not allowed to by its parent company. And if its business becomes limited, it doesn't have much reason to stay a business.

To be fair, though, you are correct that there have been happy mergers in business where companies have been acquired or merged purely for the strength of combined marketshare (albeit Bethesda stands to lose marketshare on its own books if it's not in all of its markets anymore, but we're just blueskying at this point) and that there are cases where multiple "competing" businesses exist within a corporation without the big fish swallowing the guppy in the same tank. Of the top of my head, though, I don't know how well the history of Microsoft is in that kind of happy coexistence (maybe they have a better rep than the other massive conglomerations? I honestly don't know,) and for that, I may have to Bing it...
 
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Its Round 2.





























BjiUNWI.png
It'll be trash like everything they do
 

elliot5

Member
When will the "buh PC" comments end..

Xbox includes PC from first party. Always. Forever. Not all games on PC will be on console like AoE4 (for now..), but if it's on console from XGP/XGS/Bethesda it'll be on PC. Just stop beating the dead horse.
 

01011001

Banned
That's okay, I don't need to google it.

Atlas did not change its business practices in the merger of its company with SEGA; Rockstar Games is a publishing label of Take-2 Games, I don't think it really had any business practices to change (unless DMA had some plans that were for some reason different before and after?) In either case, all of the entities involved were able to make their own business plans independent of the parent for the good of their own business, which is my point, that if Bethesda Softworks is no longer open to engage in the business practices it has developed its expertise in over the past I'm going to guess 25 years, then there is no reason to keep Bethesda Softworks when the desirable Bethesda properties are its IP and its development studios.

Also, of course, SEGA and T2 are not manufacturers of their own game consoles (sadly for SEGA fans...) or streaming media services.

If Bethesda could make more money selling on PlayStation and Stadia and heck Nintendo in addition to Xbox (depending on what deal Microsoft is paying, which ultimately is all MS money anyway but the way the books look is of course complicated, but also more interestingly is depending on is these games being exclusives happens to elevate their profile and sell more copies with just the Xbox audience), then it's in Bethesda's best interest to explore that option, unless it is not allowed to by its parent company. And if its business becomes limited, it doesn't have much reason to stay a business.

You are correct, though, that there have been happy mergers where companies have been acquired or merged purely for the strength of combined marketshare (albeit Bethesda stands to lose marketshare on its own books if it's not in all of its markets anymore, but we're just blueskying at this point) and that there are cases where multiple "competing" businesses exist within a corporation without the big fish swallowing the guppy in the same tank. Of the top of my head, though, I don't know how well the history of Microsoft is in that kind of happy coexistence (maybe they have a better rep than the other massive conglomerations? I honestly don't know,) and for that, I may have to Bing it...

Rockstar games is a publisher, not a publishing lable by Take 2. they publish games that are made by the multiple different studios they have.

it's literally the same situation. and Take 2 not being a console manufacturer doesn't matter here. it is not unusual to have the subsidiary be somewhat autonomous. all that means is that Bethesda has somewhat autonomy, just like Rockstar has. but what it doesn't mean is anything regarding what consoles will get what game.
no big Bethesda game that's not already part of a deal will come to PlayStation, still thinking otherwise is pure delusionary nonsense.

Bethesda still being a publishing entity doesn't prove anything to the contrary.
 
When will the "buh PC" comments end..

Xbox includes PC from first party. Always. Forever. Not all games on PC will be on console like AoE4 (for now..), but if it's on console from XGP/XGS/Bethesda it'll be on PC. Just stop beating the dead horse.
So “Xbox exclusive” is synonymous with not Playstation. You don’t actually need an Xbox at all and never will.
 

THEAP99

Banned
It's disappointing we didn't see gameplay for either two games tbh. But hopefully they're good. I don't think Redfall sounds too interesting tbh and might be a downgrade for Arkane. Starfield could be big once again we need footage.

What about contraband? Why is nobody talking about that? What even is it?
 

elliot5

Member
It's disappointing we didn't see gameplay for either two games tbh. But hopefully they're good. I don't think Redfall sounds too interesting tbh and might be a downgrade for Arkane. Starfield could be big once again we need footage.

What about contraband? Why is nobody talking about that? What even is it?
An open world co op heist game as described by Windows Central. Seems like a Sea of Thieves type model of getting a crew, plotting out your move, and vehicle combat after making out with your contraband.
 

YukiOnna

Member
So “Xbox exclusive” is synonymous with not Playstation. You don’t actually need an Xbox at all and never will.
When have they ever stated otherwise? Near the end of last generation they had started to transition to calling it all the Xbox Ecosystem in the first place which was Xbox/PC IIRC. I thought that integration made everything clear and Phil hasn't hidden away from it. If someone prefers a box, they can buy the box and if someone has the PC to get the games, then that's an option, too.
 

elliot5

Member
It’s like saying Days Gone is PlayStation exclusive. Is that a problem?
No? Not to me. If you want to go into detail you can say console exclusive, but playstations business is different. They don't release on day 1 like Xbox does. So it's redundant for Xbox, not so much for PlayStation.
 
I love the facet that exclusives are being bought out again and im a PS fan. Go look up E3 2003 SONY conference, thats what it was all about back then, you buy the console for the exclusivity it offers. It was fun and gave you great options. I looked today at the MS conference and after it finished, I was like fuck it I need an xboxS1 right now. Im bored of all this...lets hold hands together, lets have teh same game on every platform bla bla bla. Let each console shine with its own games. And the fact 98% of these games are coming to gamepass...pffff.
 
Cyberpunk had a confirmed release date too. How many delays did it get? And even when it released it was unfinished. You can expect the same from Bethesda, their games are never polished.
Their games never had this much shared tech and money behind them before. I'm open minded to see what will happen. Ideally next gen tech will make game dev a bit easier especially after seeing the ue5 trailer / deep dive (not that every studio is using it, but the idea that most technologies will be more user friendly / quality of life / future proofing). Hopefully next gen tech makes lives easier with fewer bugs so time can be spent on the game. Let me use an example, how is forza horizon 5 coming out this soon? Much of the guts must have been ported over with slight improvements that way a lot of the time can be spent designing cars and the map, rather than the core gameplay, achievement tracking, cloud capabilities, etc.
 

ZehDon

Gold Member
Good Lord, the fucking gymnastics.

"Read the exact wording - it says Xbox exclusive, but we all know that Xbox just means Gamepass, and Phil has said MULTIPLE TIMES that they want Gamepass on everything. That means Xbox is looking to go third party with Gamepass. But, not everyone has Gamepass, so that means not every game can be on Gamepass, so there'll be some Xbox Gamepass games that aren't on Gamepass. This is basically what Phil is saying when he says Xbox Exclusive. That means those games will 100% be on PlayStation. Not that I care, all of their game looks like trash, but Phil was pretty vague when we said "a full Xbox exclusive". He basically 100% confirmed Starfield will be on PlayStation 5 when he said that if you actually read what he said. Starfield will probably also look better on PS5, maybe with some exclusive PS5 DLC as a sweetener to PlayStation fans. Not that I care because the game looks like trash, but I just want to clear this up because I'm really tired of seeing all the FUD from Xbox fan boys on GAF. Phil's statement was 100% clear: A full Xbox exclusive = a PlayStation 5 game. I don't know how anyone could read it any other way. Game still looks like trash though."
 
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Stuart360

Member
Good Lord, the fucking gymnastics.

"Read the exact wording - it says Xbox exclusive, but we all know that Xbox just means Gamepass, and Phil has said MULTIPLE TIMES that they want Gamepass on everything. That means Xbox is looking to go third party with Gamepass. But, not everyone has Gamepass, so that means not every game can be on Gamepass, so there'll be some Xbox Gamepass games that aren't on Gamepass. This is basically what Phil is saying when he says Xbox Exclusive. That means those games will 100% be on PlayStation. Not that I care, all of their game looks like trash, but Phil was pretty vague when we said "a full Xbox exclusive". He basically 100% confirmed Starfield will be on PlayStation 5 when he said that if you actually read what he said. Starfield will probably also look better on PS5, maybe with some exclusive PS5 DLC as a sweetener to PlayStation fans. Not that I care because the game looks like trash, but I just want to clear this up because I'm really tired of seeing all the FUD from Xbox fan boys on GAF. Phil's statement was 100% clear: A full Xbox exclusive = a PlayStation 5 game. I don't know how anyone could read it any other way. Game still looks like trash though."
This is genius.
 

CamHostage

Member
Rockstar games is a publisher, not a publishing lable by Take 2. they publish games that are made by the multiple different studios they have.

Like I said, I didn't google it, but okay, it's a publisher.

It's funny, have you ever wondered, what's the difference between "Publisher" and "Publishing Label"?

For me, especially in the digital age where there's not always something to distribute, we use those terms "publisher" and "publishing label" somewhat interchangeably in my business (except in cases where it's clear that they just made up a label name to market to a different audience and the staff is all the same with no new mailbox to reach... or when the client gripes that we called them a "publishing label".) Sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's confusing to determine when a business entity inside a corporation can officially call itself a publisher instead of just a label. I'm not sure. Is there a legal difference between "Publisher" and "Publishing Label"? So that, I googled.

I've got some solid info on how it works in the music industry:

Publishing companies and record labels are responsible for two seperate (separate) aspects of a song:

  • A publishing company exploits and administers musical compositions (i.e., this song is written by x and y).
  • A record label exploits, promotes and distributes catalogues of music recordings.

In the games industry, it seems less straighforward though. I could accept Rockstar is a publisher, and then I thought Private Division was a publishing label (Private Division describes itself as a publisher, so I would have guessed wrong,) yet the Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. corporate boilerplate clouds it a bit with the way it describes all of its businesses:

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a leading developer, publisher and marketer of interactive entertainment for consumers around the globe. The Company develops and publishes products principally through its wholly-owned labels Rockstar Games and 2K, as well as its new Private Division label...

I don't know man? It just seems like who is the publisher and who did the publishing, and which gets the credit for publisher versus which did the active publishing is more complicated business than I can understand without actually having an idea of how these deals are worked out and who gets which part of the dollars before putting it all in the same family jar.

...BTW, it'll be interesting to see who "publishes" Psychonauts 2 on PlayStation, right? The plan right now is, Psychonauts 2 will be published by Xbox Games Studios on its various platforms. So far, however, every Xbox Games Studios product has been "published" by a different MS publishing label, despite the Xbox Games Studio logo making its way into the final product (and same for Sony Interactive Entertainment brand and PlayStation Studios logo on the release of Sony's game.)

it is not unusual to have the subsidiary be somewhat autonomous. all that means is that Bethesda has somewhat autonomy, just like Rockstar has. but what it doesn't mean is anything regarding what consoles will get what game.
...Except, Bethesda does not have autonomy. According to your interpretation of deal terms, Bethesda can only do what Microsoft allows it to do.
 
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Thanks for sharing, everyone here was on the edge of their seat waiting for your concise and unbiased opinion.
You're welcome. I'm replying because some clown thought it funny to make that multiquote post to throw shit at me. Bugthesda is a perfect fit for Xbox. They still have a lot to prove.
 
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Zeroing

Banned
I quoted the exacted thing and you can click on them if you want.
I checked and you did changed some and you took everything out of context but I’m glad you took the time to do so. Shows how focused you are into console wars.

so what’s your point? Keep derailing the thread. So what 2 exclusives, good.
all my replies were about about how hard is to create, maintain and grow studios.
 

yurinka

Member
Its Round 2.
I still can’t believe there were people out there dumb enough to think Microsoft spent billions upon billions of dollars to put games on PlayStation and funnel money out of Game Pass.
To the surprise of no one. You don't spend 7 billion to release the games for your competition. What would be the point then? Might as well leave things as they were then.
They already did it with Minecraft Dungeons and said their strategy with Bethesda is 'first or best on Xbox' etc.

On top of that many games in different generations have been announced and marketed as 'exclusives' on both sides and some time after launch (or even before) ended being timed exclusives. So let's wait and see.
 
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EDMIX

Member
Any reasonable speculation that Bethesda will continue multi-platform releases for major titles is now ended. Microsoft didn't glance over Starfield and Redfall exclusivity, they repeated and emphasized it. It's obvious now that this is their policy going forward, with any future exceptions being extremely limited, such as fulfilling contractual obligations made prior to the acquisition.

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Dat 11,11 release date doe! I don't feel it will keep it though, would love to be wrong on it.


Day 1 for Starfield, have no clue about that whole co-op shooter as it looks like a loot box magnet for MTX, need to see more to really tell if I'd buy it or not. So many questions for Starfield, like is the main character fixed person or you can create them ala Fallout / Elder Scrolls? Are they just showing the main character for marketing stuff, but they are create a character ala how Mass Effect is marketed?

Can we fly the ship from planet to planet in real time or is it just a loading screen type thing? I'm hype either way for any details. I'm 10000% ok they didn't show a whole deep build.

Work.

Build.

Develop.

Talk to us when that shit is done, take yo time lol

Stuart360 Stuart360 "It was always stupid reasoning. Yes games where a contract is already in place, but why on earth would they spend that much money to then put the game on competing platforms lol." Well, not really. Like you said, if they had some contract in place, look at the whole Deathloop and Ghostwire situation. MS has also done stuff like that in the past more compared to Sony or Nintendo.

As in Minecraft is on many platforms and Rare continued for literally years to create games for Gamecube, GBA, DS etc for Nintendo. So with stuff like this, its really hard to tell and isn't always a 100% answer that is always the same, as to why those other examples even exist. So based on how MS is putting games on many platforms right now, its hard to tell with them. Its why this was more of a question that kept being asked vs when Sony or Nintendo buy a team, developer etc.

How many times has Sony or Nintendo bought a developer and then proceed for YEARS to allow them to put games on PS, Nintendo, XB or? So we can see that pattern and say pretty certain that they won't, with MS I think its not that easy, so I don't disagree with your point as its valid, simply that the question is just as valid too. As yes, MS has bought teams before and kept games on XB, they also bought teams before and kept support many platforms doe.

Thus....both are valid. They did both, so it can be assumed that either or wouldn't really be wrong as a guess.

That being said, MS should have done this shit with Bioware lol They literally knew Mass Effect was going to be a trilogy and literally published it and didn't pull the trigger on buying that parent company. So if anything, Gamepass has helped XB gamers GREATLY as old MS was never going to be doing shit like this if it was JUST 100% ONLY going to be on XB ALONE and nothing else. The whole XB, Win 10 PC, XCloud, Gamepass etc is what is driving MS to seek the Netflix of gaming and even as someone that doesn't tend to like this publisher much, its a bold move and makes complete sense long term if they can make it work.
 
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MonarchJT

Banned
If people reply to old post giving me shit they're the ones waging war or trying miserably and looking rather pathetic. Enjoy your trash, and don't quote me to war or I'll give you war on your ass.
Thus in life you will learn that you cannot always say what you want without ever paying a pledge.Gaf has served crows for decades. If he can sweeten the pill, know that many (especially ps fans) so insisted on not wanting to see Bethesda as a full First party.
 

MonarchJT

Banned
I’m too tired to start wasting my time to prove what a random guy did, in the internet. you have the time to start random drama, good for you!

keep your console war! Have fun. you “won” I’m sure you got some awesome Xbox points.
not Xbox points ..xbox got exclusives
 
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