Xbox boss says he acquired Bethesda to deliver Game Pass exclusives

Xbox boss Phil Spencer further explained the company’s motivation behind its acquisition of Fallout publisher Bethesda. During a roundtable with key figures at Xbox and Bethesda today, Spencer said that the deal is about providing exclusives to its Game Pass subscription service.

“If you’re an Xbox customer, the thing I want you to know is that this is about delivering great exclusive games to you that ship on platforms where Game Pass exists,” Spencer explained. “That’s our goal. That’s why we’re doing this. That’s the root of this partnership.”

Spencer also explained why the company has remained coy up to this point about exclusivity. One issue is that Microsoft could not work with Bethesda directly until the deal closed. That only went through on Monday. But the Xbox executive also noted that some projects will launch on other platforms for other reasons.

“There are contractual obligations that we’re going to see through as we always do,” said Spencer. “We have games that exist on other platforms, and we’re going to go support those games on the platforms they’re on.”

But he also left the door open for the possibility that some new, unannounced games may still launch on PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch.

“Even in the future, there might be things that have either contractual things or legacy on other platforms that we’ll go do,” said Spencer.

The way Spencer phrased it made these contractual and legacy multiplatform releases seem rare. And it could refer to something like the new Indiana Jones game, which Bethesda has a deal with Disney to produce.