Elder Scrolls 6 might not be an Xbox exclusive
In an interview with Bloomberg (reported on by GamesRadar) alongside Starfield Game Director, Todd Howard, Xbox’s Head of Gaming Phil Spencer was asked whether The Elder Scrolls 6 would be an Xbox exclusive, and he gave a fantastically wiley answer, deftly avoiding coming down on either side of the fence.
“We look at it on a case by case basis with the games that we build. We want to make sure our games are available in so many different places – on our xbox consoles, on PC, also via cloud. These games can come to almost any web-enabled device” said Spencer.
It’s entirely possible that Phil refuses to give a straight answer here because he doesn’t have one yet. Microsoft has made commitments to bringing Call of Duty to PlayStation consoles for the next ten years should it successfully close its proposed deal to buy Activision, so it’s clearly not opposed to having Xbox Games Studios games on Sony consoles, if it makes sense financially.
Starfield could well be the litmus test that Xbox is using to determine whether The Elder Scrolls goes exclusive or not. If it moves the needle in terms of console sales, it could be a strong sign that The Elder Scrolls 6 would do the same.
Earlier this year, Spencer told the FTC that “I think we’ve been a little unclear on what platforms it’s launching on, given how far out the game is. It’s difficult for us right now to nail down,” referencing the fact that The Elder Scrolls 6 hadn’t even entered full production at that point. It’s years away from our screens, and might not even arrive until the next console generation.
It looks like we’ve all got plenty of time to grab those Starfield achievements while we wait for The Elder Scrolls 6 at any rate. Or you could just start another playthrough of Skyrim…