Microsoft Only Bought Bethesda After Learning Starfield Might’ve Been A PlayStation Exclusive

As the FTC’s suit against Microsoft continues, and executives like Phil Spencer take the stand, we’re learning a whole lot of dramatic information about all the involved parties.

One specifically dramatic piece of news is that Microsoft only went after acquiring ZeniMax after learning that Starfield might also be a PlayStation timed-exclusive in the same way that Deathloop and Ghostwire:Tokyo were.

“When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had a done deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire…to pay Bethesda not to ship those games on Xbox.

So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can’t be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content ownership so we’ve had to secure content to remain viable in the business.”

While discussion exclusive content, Spencer also reiterated talking points we’ve seen before on how Sony is dolling out funds to third-party publishers and developers to make titles exclusive to PlayStation, and “skip” Xbox.

And though it was revealed that for all the showboating it did, PlayStation was never really afraid Microsoft would pull Call Of Duty from its consoles, Spencer for good measure swore under oath that should Microsoft acquire Activision, “we will continue to ship future versions of Call Of Duty on Sony’s PlayStation 5.”

This does however leave a convenient loophole in that Spencer only specifies the PlayStation 5, and not future consoles.

Source – [The Verge]