So if he was just talking out of his ass then it is what it is, but it is a big difference when you are making statements in a SEC filing.
I suggest you to read the proper full transcription of the interview instead of the arstechica article to get a more complete an unbiased idea of what he said:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/43...interactive-entertainment-virtual?part=single
He wasn't 'suspecting' or saying things out of his ass. This guy is the MS gaming division CFO, meaning that he's the guy in charge of the financials of the MS gaming division and there is nobody else above him regarding financials in that division so he knows a thing or two about stuff about the acquisitions that costs them Billions and how do they plan to recoup them. He said this:
"And we said this as part of the announcement. When we think
about Bethesda, it's going to be the continuing to allow -- I'll say allow, but continue to sell their games on the platforms that they exist today, and we'll determine what that looks over time and will change over time.
I'm not making any announcements about exclusivity or something like that. But that model will change.
But really, it's about how do you take that content and put it into a service like Game Pass to drive that subscription of the North Star metric? So I think the long -- the short answer to your question is we'll continue to look at content, we will continue to look at bolstering our first-party studios. And as always, if the right value is there with the right content creators with the right IP, we'll continue to look at opportunities like that."
Then later in the interview:
"
Alex Giaimo
That's helpful. And another question we're getting from the line here is with the acquisition of Bethesda, is the plan to make certain Bethesda franchises, like Fallout and DOOM, exclusive to Xbox? Or will you still support cross-platform play?
Tim Stuart
Yes. The goal here is, we're -- I'll say it from a cross-platform perspective. Microsoft is a platform. We're one of the first to really support Minecraft, Roadblock, Fortnite across platforms.
So we highly encourage cross-platform play, simply from this landscape of, if it's good for the gaming ecosystem, it's good for us, classic rising tide lifts all boats.
What we'll do in the long run is we don't have intentions of just pulling all of Bethesda content out of Sony or Nintendo or otherwise. But what we want is we want that content, in the long run, to be either first or better or best or pick your differentiated experience, on our platforms. We will want Bethesda content to show up the best as -- on our platforms.
Yes. That's not a point about being exclusive. That's not a point about we're being -- adjusting timing or content or road map. But if you think about something like Game Pass, if it shows up best in Game Pass, that's what we want to see, and we want to drive our Game Pass subscriber base through that Bethesda pipeline.
So again, I'm not announcing pulling content from platforms one way or the other. But I suspect you'll continue to see us shift towards a first or better or best approach on our platforms."
TLDR: Their main goal acquiring Bethesda was to secure content for Gamepass instead. "What they'll do in the long run" isn't "pulling content out from platforms / Sony or Nintendo", instead to have these games "in the long run" "either first or better" on their platforms.
Ms can easily recoup that from pc. You guys think, ps4 would have next gen games easily. Those 120m users is gone, once next gen games start dropping fast.
According to Sony 111 Million of their PS users were active in December, they aren't gone.
