Gaming insider Imran Khan reveals that Sony was in talks with Bethesda to secure exclusive rights to Starfield before the studio's Xbox buyout.
It turns out that Sony was negotiating Starfield’s PlayStation 5 exclusivity before the recent, hugely surprising Xbox buyout of Bethesda. As a result of that purchase, Starfield and all future Bethesda games could skip PlayStation 5 in favor of Xbox and PC.
The shocking acquisition of ZeniMax Media by Xbox became public yesterday. Microsoft effectively secured the ownership of all the studios belonging to ZeniMax, including, Bethesda, id, and Arkane. According to the announcement, all the future games of the publisher will be releasing on Xbox and PC, which means that Microsoft’s line-up of titles for the upcoming generation has been reinforced with exclusive rights to The Elder Scrolls IV and Starfield. However, Microsoft says that future titles from ZeniMax studios could come to other platforms on a case-by-case basis.
Interestingly, Sony could have outrun Microsoft in the exclusivity race if only it had negotiated with Bethesda successfully. According to the gaming industry insider and journalist Imran Khan, Sony was discussing the possibility of Starfield becoming a PlayStation 5 exclusive a few months ago. Given that Microsoft eventually managed to close its eyebrow-raising deal, Sony’s discussions were obviously unsuccessful. Still, the company managed to grab a couple of exclusive releases for PS5 - Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo - which are both being published by Bethesda.
Starfield was announced at E3 2019 during Bethesda’s showcase as a brand new sci-fi IP. Back then, the company noted that the game was its first original project in 25 years since establishing The Elder Scrolls franchise. Little to nothing is known about the title; it is expected to focus on space exploration utilizing Bethesda’s traditional approach towards creating open-world RPGs. The developer is not quite ready to share any specific details regarding the game, but Pete Hines, Bethesda’s marketing chief, promised that the eventual reveal of Starfield would be worth the wait.
While Sony was the first company to approach Bethesda with exclusivity discussions, it was Microsoft that took the talks to the level of proper actions. Perhaps, the price of Starfield’s exclusivity offered by Bethesda was too high for Sony to consider while Microsoft laid out an enormous sum of $7.5 billion without any hesitation. Not only did the company score the rights to the original sci-fi IP, but it also secured the entirety of Bethesda’s gaming portfolio. It's certainly a blow to PlayStation 5, though Sony has more than a few notable exclusives of its own on the horizon.
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