Your reasons were nonsensical though.
Microsoft owns the company making this game.
You’re basically saying, “Microsoft won’t get any GOOD exclusives, even from development houses they own, because not even Microsoft would want to make exclusive games for their platform.”
You are letting yourself be blinded by irrational fanboyism, dude. It doesn’t make any sense.
They clarify, set out milestones, penalties, and typically project the end goal with targets. There’s a big difference. A deal may include targets that list out what platforms the game will release on or it may not. It may set penalties or reimbursement for not making those platforms. Rarely does missing a platform goal constitute a breach since the financial remuneration has already been listed in the contract.
Remember when Rare made games for Nintendo, then they stopped doing that because Microsoft purchased them? Same thing will happen with Bethesda.
Minecraft is a different beast. Minecraft is a brand, like Pokemon, and already existed on every platform imaginable. Minecraft, and Pokemon, doesn’t make its money on games, it makes its money on toys, cards, and merchandise. Limiting its exposure to Xbox and PC only would severely hurt that brand.
Bethesda has no huge brands like this. They make video games, and their earning potential largely stops with software sales. Yes MS will make more money on their Bethesda Studio games if they sell those games on Playstation. But they want to make money selling Xboxes. Acquiring Bethesda was a move to sell more Xboxes.
I’m not sure how this is even debatable, as it’s so obvious. It just seems like irrational denialism to suggest otherwise.
They don’t own them yet. Deal is not finalized and won’t be for quite awhile yet.
Yeah, the deal is due to be finalized in Q3 of FY21.
This is Q3 of FY21. :)
And I said I think Sony had additional leverage based on the negotiations surrounding Spider-Man in the MCU.
Microsoft doesn’t own the company yet. Even if they did, this is obviously a deal that predates the acquisition and it’s silly to presume MS can magically rewrite the contract. Deathloop and Chostwire Tokyo are both still launching as PS5 exclusive for this reason.
How do we know this? Where was this stated?
Dude, those are exclusive games.
Sony paid money for that exclusivity. They had a contract.
Console makers don’t pay money simply to have you make a game for their console. They pay money to have you NOT distribute a game to other consoles.
There is no indication at all that some sort of contract exists guaranteeing exclusivity of this game on Sony’s platform, and in absence of that, there wouldn’t be any conrtact with Sony at all.
The fact that the game may have started development prior to the Bethesda acquisition does not suggest at all that it would be deployed on the PlayStation.
I mean, you can keep imagining that a giant acquisition by Microsoft isn’t going to result in exclusive titles for the Xbox… Despite the fact that it was obviously the express purpose of the acquisition… But that seems like you are just fooling yourself.
This at least I can say likely had no bearing. Sony is not vertically integrated in this fashion.
It’s far enough along in development that they are announcing it. That suggests to me it’s been in the works for a year or more. But, as I said, even if the deal was a week old, the fact remains MS doesn’t own Bethesda yet, so platform exclusivity probably never entered into the negotiation.
What are you talking about? Nowhere have I suggested that it would be PlayStation exclusive. But a contract between Bethesda and Disney absolutely exists and target platforms would absolutely be part of that agreement. The pending MS acquisition does not give them the power to unilaterally change those terms.
You cited, as example, games which were exclusive to Playstation prior to the acquisition.
The only reason why those games will continue to be exclusive, is because the developer had a contractual obligation to Sony. That is not the case with a game which is not exclusive, so your example of those exclusive titles is meaningless and irrelevant.
No, there’s no reason to believe this is the case.
Disney simply licensed IP to the developer. All they care about is the money they got in exchange, and as previously suggested, potentially preventing actual harm to the IP (such as by releasing a really bad game).
I don’t get how this suggests the deal has been in the works for a year or more, but given there were a few months between the announcement of the Bethesda deal and this deal then I’m pretty confident the Disney folks were aware of Bethesda getting bought and they decided to follow through with the new Star Wars deal anyway. Which is kind of interesting, I mean why not stick with EA and Respawn especially now that they’re a proven quantity with the IP?
Which, again, is not to say that you’re wrong or that this new game won’t be multiplatform. It may very well be, but no one has announced anything about that yet (to the best of my knowledge) and I don’t think it’s “obvious” at all how this will turn out.
I also don’t really get the relevance of the MS/Bethesda deal not being done yet, as if there were a real risk of this not closing. I guess somebody could sail in with a sweeter offer like EA, that would be funny.
I cited it as an example of a contract Bethesda entered into that predates Microsoft’s acquisition effort that is no being changed just because MS is acquiring the company. My supposition is that the Indy deal likewise predates acquisition and that the terms will likewise not suddenly be modified just because of an acquisition is occurring.
It’s standard practice in the industry. There is every reason to believe target platforms are specified.
You mean Indy deal. And the timing for the Bethesda collaboration reveal was obviously timed to coincide with this week’s announcement of Lucasfilm Games which also includes today’s Star Wars Ubisoft game. It’s a new endeavor that goes back to at least July 2019 when John Drake became a VP of biz dev at Disney specifically to pursue this strategy. The MS acquisition effort was far more recent than that. Rumors suggest there was an alternative offer on the table to acquire Bethesda from Sony last fall. Point being, it’s likely the contract for the Machine Games Indy project were settled well before any acquisition became a factor.
Per my understanding, until the deal closes both parties are legally precluded from acting in concert, and must continue to uphold their fiduciary duty as independent entities. This would cover things like making a game exclusive to the Xbox platform prematurely.
You really think these deals have no revenue share component? I think they do.
Disney’s interest was aligned with Bethesda, in that they wanted to sell as many copies as possible for as much money as possible. Microsoft’s interest is not aligned with that. They want to use this to promote their platforms. I can’t imagine Disney being happy with anything that reduces sales of the game for real money, unless there’s some compensation.
Correct.
Yes, I did mean the Indy deal, thank you. Mainly what I’m getting at is not to suggest that none of this is feasible, rather to my way of thinking either outcome seems feasible. I think you have a valid point that Bethesda could not act as if they were already Microsoft regarding contractual agreements - but by the same token, they can’t really act as if they are a fully independent entity either I would think. I’m not an attorney but this seems to be a weird limbo period for Bethesda, which further confuses the situation with the games they’re signing up to create.
And I explained why those things are fundamentally different.
With the exclusive games, there was a contract with Sony, where Sony specifically paid them money for the exclusivity.
You have no insight into the licensing deal that Lucasflm games made with the developer in this case. Seriously, you have literally zero knowledge about what that deal entailed. Frankly, all of us know essentially nothing about the entire game itself, or its development timeline at this point. We have a 10 second mini-trailer that basically amounts to, “Something involving Indiana Jones!”
Disney is looking to make money. There are lots of ways for that to happen.
As long as Disney gets the money, that is absolutely all they care about.
Ya know what though? It’s fine for Brad to continue to imagine that all of these Bethesda properties are gonna somehow show up on the Playstation. It doesn’t really matter… at some point, we’ll all see what actually happens, and we won’t need to hypothesize about the future.
But really, thus far, it’s been kind of nuts… the ideas of, “Oh, well clearly they wouldn’t make the biggest franchises Bethesda has exclusive!” are absurd on their face. (not this game, of course, I’m talking about previous dreams that things like Elder Scrolls were gonna go on the PS5) The reason Microsoft made the acquisition, was explicitly for that purpose.
This has literally no bearing on my point.
Of course I have no specific knowledge, just decades of interest and experience following the industry and reading about what has been revealed about behind the scenes. Even if I didn’t, logic dictates the IP holder definitely cares about things like addressable market and sales potential. The suggestion that they don’t care about such things is the extraordinary claim requiring supporting evidence.
I guess we’ll see, won’t we?