Oh definitely. There is still a lot to look forward to on the Ps5. Most PS fans are okay and will get over it. 

When was the last time you needed a cutting edge gaming PC to be a PC gamer? Budget decent PCs and laptops are widely available, this is not the early 2000s anymore. Chances are, if you're in a market for a decent PC, which most people in the first world are, then you're in the market for gaming PC by extension. 

@JRPGfan, lol, this is MS, this is big tech. They operate on an entirely different scale than minions like SONY or Nintendo.

No one at at MS gives two shits if they ever recoup those 7.5 billions. Growth is the name of the game, for investors and MS alike; faster growth creates more value for most companies than slightly improved profits. The amount of cringy posts about MS "needing" to sell their games on Playstation to make the money back is outstanding. 

I am sure someone at Amazon/Google got fired for not thinking of buying Bethesda before MS did. This is not about slightly increasing the next few quarters profits, this is about securing the future platform of gaming, the platform that SONY recognized earlier than anyone else and then acknowledged by buying Gaikai and OnLive... before going to sleep and dreaming of VR as the future of gaming? the actual fuck. 

So you validate the stereotype that PS fans can always go to their PC to play Xbox games. But my point was just poking fun at the many people who still want Bethesda games to go to PS5. This shouldn’t be a issue right? Point being PC gaming isn’t universally adopted. 

Edit: Many laptops and PCs you buy at a store probably won’t be built to run many modern PC games at decent settings. At least $1000 or less will not guarantee anything.

Well that's going with assumption a significant number of PS users also have a capable gaming PC.

However, MS could argue cloud gaming is a totally viable option that most gamers have access to. Hopefully by the time any major Bethesda games release we also have xCloud on more devices.

I am skeptical about MS excluding Playstation for a few reasons.

First, there is so much money being left on the table by skipping Playstation when they already have many studios working on exclusives. Second, they already get benefits by owning Zenimax such as launching $60-70 games on Gamepass, exclusive marketing, bundles and perhaps even timed exclusivity or content. Last, Zenimax will still be its own publisher it seems.

If MS had less studios and less big projects in development, keeping Zenimax content exclusive might feel more necessary. In general it would also encourage more people to use MS platforms. But I think MS will play it safe and get the Playstation money as well while also using the benefits of owning the IPs.

Huh, I’m surprised at your caution. But in response the whole idea of exclusives has always been about leaving money on the table. Technically Sony or Nintendo locking their games to their platforms is leaving money on the table. 

Keeping future big hitters on PS5 won’t create the Game Pass numbers spike MS wants if PS gamers know they can simply “wait them out” if it’s say timed exclusive.

Guess we’ll see, I’m guessing Phil being vague for 2 reasons: The acquisition won’t be official till next year and therefore ply it safe till then. And all the vague statements makes for so much Xbox free press. All this free advertising we gamers are doing word of mouth is insane PR boost for Xbox that official marketing just can’t do. 

You can get a decent gaming rig for under $800 tbh. Not everything needs to "4K at 120fps ultra nightmare!!!" and running with so much RGB the entirety of your home at night looks like a disco. You aren't Linus/Austin/Justine/Marques/whatever. 

Of course, all PS gamers will buy a really cool and awesome overkill PC with Ballistix RAM and an Optane or Aorus SSD that can put even their beloved console out of action! They are personally certified by LMG as "overkill machines" complete with VR support and $4000 240hz OLED displays rendering at 16K! 

...or so the legend goes... 

Not as long as you think.

If they lock Elderscrolls VI to Xbox, then every sale is 100% going to Microsoft. (Minus distribution and licensing costs and other aspects.)
On a Sony console they give up 30% of the sale to Sony or there-abouts.

But it's not just the short-term sale that they need to consider, it's going to draw more gamers to Xbox, those gamers over the long term will likely buy games that aren't just Elder Scrolls VI, those gamers are likely to buy accessories, those gamers are likely to subscribe to game pass.

It's the flow-on effect that a single game can have to an ecosystem.

It's the same concept as a petrol/fuel/gas station, not all service stations offer LPG.
If you have a dual-fuel vehicle that can run on LPG and Petroleum, you are more likely to go to a service station that offers LPG where you will also likely buy Petroleum... And likely buy foods/drinks/snacks inside the service station resulting in an overall larger sale and thus profit for the garage, even if the LPG sale is only relatively small in volume compared to other fuels.

Plus Microsoft has 10's of billions of dollars laying around not doing anything, from an investor point of view, spending that money on something that can bolster revenues is a much better investment than having cash laying around and not bringing in additional profits.
It's the long term goal here that needs to be considered, not just the short-term gain.

Honestly, it will probably do Microsoft some good to have Elder Scrolls VI exclusive to Xbox, one of the biggest criticisms of Xbox is the lack of exclusives, so this will help fix that relevant criticism.

"We won't remove from others", do that by removing from one of the platforms it was releasing so far. I dunno why people defend Spencer two pronged tongue so much.

There's an easy solution for Sony to keep Bethesda games on PlayStation and that's to put Gamepass onto the platform :)