Bethesda Softworks - Todd Howard Interview @Gamesindustry

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Todd Howard has addressed the question of exclusivity for their next generation games in an interview with Games Industry.

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But it's the potential for the rest of ZeniMax's IP that is perhaps most intriguing. Franchises like Prey and Dishonored are both understood to be on hold having struggled to meet sales expectations -- despite critical acclaim for their most recent outings. But Game Pass is about delivering a variety of content that people want, not just raw sales. Even id Software co-founder John Carmack commented at the time that the deal may lead to the revival of older franchises.

Howard certainly sees an opportunity: "Game Pass and things like it allow titles to be successful where the economics of the business, and having to sell things at retail to sell X amount of copies... That works against some games. Just like in other avenues -- let's take television or movies. Certain types of comedies or big budget dramas went away. TV went to the cheapest thing they could make for a long time, reality television, which I could equate to a free-to-play match-three game. What brings eyeballs? What's cheap? Right, let's get it out.

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Despite the many entry points to the Xbox ecosystem, there are still concerns that all future Bethesda titles will be restricted to channels the Microsoft controls. Xbox boss Phil Spencer said at the time that Bethesda's games continuing to be multiformat will be judged "on a case-by-case basis" -- and Howard reiterates that the details of the deal are still being finalised. When it comes to such releases, he says, "We haven't gone through all of that, to be honest."

"We do view it, and always have by ourselves, on a case-by-case basis," he says. "We'll do that as part of Microsoft as well. They've been pretty open on other platforms and not just within Xbox. This is an outside perspective, but if you go back ten years at Microsoft, you wouldn't expect them to have a full Office suite on an iPhone either.

"I can't really project where things will be except to say we've done those sort of exercises ourselves as an independent. If you look at every Elder Scrolls game, there has been some exclusivity on Xbox or with Microsoft. We've partnered with every game. Morrowind was basically a console exclusive, Oblivion was a long timed exclusive, Skyrim's DLC was exclusive for a long period of time. We'll decide what makes the best sense for our audience when the time comes, and I can't really project today what that looks like."