- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
A document released as part of the FTC v. Microsoft case confirms what was long expected: The Elder Scrolls VI isn’t going to launch for a few years, and it isn’t coming to PlayStation. According to the new chart, which Microsoft produced for the FTC, the next Elder Scrolls game isn’t expected to launch until at least 2026 — something a Microsoft lawyer also mentioned in the court case. And much like Bethesda’s most recent games — Starfield and Redfall — it’ll be available on both PC and Xbox when it does launch.
In a statement about exclusivity attached to The Elder Scrolls VI section of the chart, which comes from an interview with Xbox head Phil Spencer in GQ, Spencer said, “In order to be on Xbox, I want us to be able to bring the full complete package of what we have. And that would be true when I think about Elder Scrolls VI.”
I get why PS5 players should be upset, but as a PC player, this is also bad news.
Starfield had to run on the Xbox, the base model of which is the least powerful console on the market (leaving out Nintendo). It seems clear that some decisions around Starfield were made to ensure it would still run on that lackluster hardware.
Doubling down on that for ESVI means the same thing. We’ll get less game so that M$ can have an exclusive.
And that’s ignoring general trust issues with Bethesda entirely.
Since the start of the generation, I could always tell that the series s, or more importantly, the promise of current-Gen support for it, was going to come back and bite Microsoft in the ass once the initial challenge of moving units during a chip shortage was over. Whereas devs can just drop the ps4 in favor of current-Gen exclusive development, they can’t really do that with the series s since it’s a requirement to release on xbox. Just look at baldur’s gate 3 where Sony gets months of sales while Microsoft has to sit around and wait for a worse version of the game to be made