14 DAY TRIAL // Bethesda Softworks is definitely on a roll nowadays – after a long and exhausting development cycle for the very anticipated Fallout 3 post-apocalyptic RPG, the company, which also holds the rights to the medieval RPG franchise The Elder Scrolls, has finally gained critical acclaim for the great work it has been doing.
Fallout 3 was a massive title that, according to Pete Hines, PR manager for Bethesda, took up almost all the resources of the company. Now that it has been launched and gaining award after award, critics are saying that Bethesda might come back to the Elder Scrolls franchise for the development of the fifth title in the series, the latest one being the very popular Oblivion.
In response to these rumors, Paul Oughton, publishing executive for Bethesda, recently talked with GamesIndustry about the future plans of the company and how it would start working on the fifth Elder Scrolls title. He went on to say that we might get to see this new game shipped around 2010 and that the Nintendo Wii wasn't a viable platform for the Washington-based developer.
"At the moment we've got Fallout 3 for this year and potentially there's a new Elder Scrolls title in 2010," said Oughton. "At the moment we're not that interested in the Wii. We're going to stick to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. We'll continue to pursue three or four titles a year and go for big titles," he said regarding the company's publishing plans for the future.
He did, however, admit the fact that the Nintendo Wii had had a critical role in bringing gaming to the masses by means of casual titles and various advertising campaigns. But, he continued, despite these things and the record sales the Japanese console registered, the market would reach a saturation point soon.
"We've seen games selling in the past 18 months that we never thought we'd see. We wouldn't have thought that pet games and cooking games would have a viable market five years ago. No publisher would have taken those products on. But Nintendo bought new products in with vast amounts of marketing money to launch these into the minds of the consumer and made a market for them. Every other publisher then very quickly developed DS and Wii products and we're getting to saturation now."