It's been a massive week for Xbox - with Microsoft announcing its acquisition of ZeniMax Media (the parent company of Bethesda) for a whopping $7.5 billion.
While we've already got some insight, in an interview with Major Nelson alongside Phil Spencer and Pete Hines, Todd Howard - director and executive producer at Bethesda - reiterated how his company's games would be better for it.
"We see the landscape of gaming out there, we've worked with the folks at Xbox and Microsoft for decades now, and we see the same things and we feel really strongly that our partnerships going forward should be even deeper and that the games we have coming up are going to be better for it."
In a blog post alongside the original announcement, Pete Hines also mentioned how the acquisition would allow Bethesda to make "even better" games moving forward.
Make of this what you will but after the "historically bad launch" of Fallout 76 in 2018, it's somewhat a relief to hear Todd say they'll be better off.
Do you think Microsoft will perhaps improve the state of future Bethesda games? Share your thoughts down below.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 18
Bethesda was headed in an ugly direction, trying to focus too much in cheap game as a services and mobile game junk.
Despite their success, they obviously struggled.
MS priority is making games that engage players into GamePass, they will obviously still pursue monetizarion (like Halo 5 MP) but I hope this means we will see an end to the gross monetization and mobile bastardization of IPs.
I suspect that both Bethesda and Microsoft game studios will benefit from access to each other’s technology and expertise.
Bethesda was already large and have been developing for Xbox since before the original Xbox came out. So the normal access to greater resources and experience argument doesn’t really apply in this case.
This is undoubtedly going to be a match-made-in-heaven.
No excuse for their games to be bad anyway. It shouldn’t take a $7.5 billion takeover to improve the quality.
Nevertheless, i’m certain that under Microsoft and moving forward into this next generation, the quality of their titles is going be much better as Xbox can’t accept anything less than great at this point
Bethesda needs to drop fallout 76 and make another single player fallout like fallout 5 with no multiplayer,and another fallout new Vegas type game with no multiplayer,and a fallout limited edition Xbox series x console would be incredible
The chosen image for this article is simply pure comedy gold. Way to hit the nail on the head from the get-go!
If MS decides to not restrict where Bethesda launches their games, they could just make enhancements (and any remakes) exclusive. So yeah PS5 can play the Pro version of Fallout 4 but XSX can play it even better
Oh hell yeah, This is the dream team baby.. Now make all these amazing games exclusive to Xbox..
Hopefully they can sort the Fallout series.
I think they just chased the live service money with 76.
Hopefully that doesn't need to happen now with MS backing them.
@NEStalgia QA coming 😁. Bethesda has been the glitches company for a while, it's nice that at least they seem to be aware.
Bethesda and Obsidian both under the same roof...imagine the possibilities.
I'm fine with buggy games. Some of my my favourite experiences were bug filled. As long as it wasn't game breaking, or grinding your exploration and progression to a halt through crashes and frame rate slowdown so bad that you are watching one frame every three minutes.
Games like Morrowind, Oblivion, FO3 and New Vegas had plenty of issues, but story and world weren't one of them. Games like FO76 just have issues from a core design and story perspective.
Lets take Halo MCC and Halo 5 as examples. 343i have fixed MCC's bugs and menu design issues, but they couldn't ever fix Halo 5's story. So when it comes to being better, make sure that means being better with the creative and not just the technical.
Bethesda used to be my absolute favorite video game developer back in the day. For me, their name was synonymous with amazing open world games that I could play endlessly. I still feel like they are that same company, though like others have said in this article, they have been stumbling a little bit. Fallout 76 was launched to a lukewarm reception, and even though Fallout 4 was generally well liked, it wasn't considered an instant classic for most people like their earlier games. I hope that being under Microsoft's banner, they can have the resources they need to be the best Bethesda they can be. That is what I want for them, and all the other studios under Zenimax.
After the likes of Fallout 76 they cant be any worse and if anything Id software can benefit the likes of 343
I’m excited at the prospect of Obsidian working alongside them on games! Maybe the next Fallout won’t have dumbed down role playing aspects!
I am a huge fan of Bethesda’s games (my favorite 3rd party publisher), but even I can’t deny that their games sometimes launch as a buggy mess. Hopefully, Microsoft will clean that crap up.
I love Bethesda my favorite game moment from a game is the final encounter in Morrowind. The fallout 76 and the issues with eso at launch hurt them in my eyes hopefully they can recover.
Well... Obviously the suits at Zenimax took over when Skyrim and the Fallout series became such a huge success. Turning Bethesda into a publishing megacorporation rather than a focusing on developing great games.
I am hoping Microsoft turns them around and gives us what we have been waiting for the last 9 years.. the next big Elder Scrolls game that improves on what it's predecessors brought to the table. They need to work on the the way they build the games. All the recent Elder Scrolls and Fallout games use the same animation, environmental techniques and world mechanics, which are currently showing their age and is especially noticeable in Fallout 76. Serious consideration must be made from the ground up if they are not to make another mess of things.
We can only hope... And Todd... The proof will be in the pudding, mate. No amount of crap talking can redeem you of what happened with FO76.
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