Xbox chief says the Bethesda deal will deliver 'great exclusive games'

During a roundtable discussion about Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media joining Microsoft, Xbox chief Phil Spencer touched on what the $7.5 billion deal would mean for game exclusivity. "If you're an Xbox customer, the thing I want you to know is this about delivering great exclusive games for you that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists," he said. "The creative capability we will be able to bring to market for Xbox customers is gonna be the best it's ever been for Xbox."

Not all Bethesda games will be exclusive to PC, Xbox and/or xCloud. Some will be multiplatform. Others, such as Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo, will initially be PS5 console exclusives. "There [are] contractual obligations that we're gonna see through, as we always do in every one of these instances," Spencer said. "We have games that exist on other platforms and we're gonna go support those games on the platforms they're on."

He noted that Xbox will continue to invest in existing "communities of players" and added that there might be cases down the line where there are contractual obligations with other platforms. "Even in the future, there might be things that have either contractual things or legacy on different platforms that we'll go do," he said. Spencer previously said that Xbox will decide whether to release future Bethesda games on non-Xbox or PC platforms on a "case-by-case basis."

It also emerged during the stream that more than 20 Bethesda games will be available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers as of Friday. A dozen more titles from the publisher will join the service, including Fallout 4.