The ongoing legal battle between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Microsoft continues to generate intriguing headlines. Just hours after learning about Microsoft‘s intention to surpass Sony through acquisitions, we now have another fascinating piece of information: Bethesda itself was unaware of the policies that Xbox planned to implement following the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.
This information came to light after an email from Pete Hines, the Senior Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications at Bethesda, was leaked. In the email, Hines expressed confusion regarding the situation in which Call of Duty remained a multi-platform brand while Bethesda titles had to be exclusive to Xbox.
“I’m confused. Isn’t this the opposite of what we were asked to do with our own titles?” Hines questioned other Bethesda executives. “I understand that there may be nuances here, but the main point is that it is being perceived as the complete opposite of what has happened to us.”
Continuing with this information, Hines also expressed concerns about the press in the future. “Did anyone at Xbox think to give us a heads-up on this? Todd [Howard] is going to DICE in a couple of weeks, don’t you think some journalist might catch wind of it and press him on why Call of Duty is fine as multi-platform, but TES6 or Starfield aren’t?“
Microsoft themselves confirmed in the trial that the response to this email was that Call of Duty has a strong presence on other consoles. Therefore, it is advisable to leave it as it is and not make it exclusive to Xbox or PC, as will be the case with Starfield, a new game that doesn’t have an established player base on other platforms.
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