Bethesda founder discusses sale to Microsoft and what it could mean for in-development games

In an interview with Inverse, Bethesda founder Chrisopher Weaver—who no longer works in the game industry and describes himself as "more of an academic" with "a pittance of the stock" in Bethesda's parent company Zenimax Media—discussed the company's sale to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

When asked about what it could mean for Bethesda's in-development games, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, he said, "I have yet to meet an executive who does not want to accelerate the sale of a potential product. The trick is to keep those administrators at bay until a product is truly ready for prime time. Bethesda has been producing commercial software for a very long time. I have to believe Microsoft execs will be responsive to Bethesda's input."

Weaver describes the relationship between Bethesda and Microsoft around the time of Morrowind's Xbox release as "excellent", saying that "I was close to key members of the original Xbox development team and shared many thoughts for what their "next-gen" console could bring to gaming." He describes Microsoft's purchase of Bungie and other studios as "prescient".

On the subject of whether he believes Bethesda's future games will eventually become console-exclusive to Xbox, Weaver said, "I do not think it is any accident that this announcement occurred so close to Sony’s PS5 announcement. There are only a limited number of proven creators of AAA. What Microsoft owns, Sony cannot get."

Christopher Weaver founded Bethesda Softworks in 1986 and created physics football game Gridiron! under its banner before serving as producer on the first two Elder Scrolls games. He later co-founded Bethesda's parent company Zenimax Media, before leaving to pursue a career in academia.