Microsoft acquired Bethesda to prevent Starfield from becoming a PS5 exclusive

Microsoft took over developer Bethesda to prevent Starfield from temporarily appearing exclusively on the PlayStation 5. Bethesda had previously made similar deals for Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

“We at Xbox cannot find ourselves in the position of coming in third place with our console and continuing to fall further behind with our content,” said Xbox CEO Phil Spencer according to The Verge, among others. “That’s why we had to secure content to remain viable in this industry.”

Sony often agrees to temporary exclusivity deals with developers, whereby a game, for example, cannot be released on competing consoles for a year. In return, the developer receives money. The company previously did this with Bethesda for Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, and was in talks to do this with Starfield as well. Spencer says his company caught wind of this and says it was a key reason for acquiring Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax.

Since the takeover, only Bethesda title Redfall has been released; This game has only been released on Xbox consoles for now. The upcoming Starfield is also currently only planned for Xbox consoles. These games are also released for PC.

Spencer made his statements in the lawsuit between Microsoft and FTC. The acquisition of Activision Blizzard is central to this; the FTC believes this could limit competition for Microsoft because it allows the company to make several titles, including Call of Duty, exclusive to its platforms. The Xbox CEO said that Sony gets thirty percent of its revenue from PlayStation game sales, which Sony uses to “try things that could reduce Xbox’s chances of survival.”