In an interview with Inverse, Bethesda founder Christopher Weaver, a "near academic" with a "small stake" in Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax Media, discussed Bethesda's sale to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

When asked what this means for Bethesda's games in development, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, he said, "I have yet to meet an executive who doesn't want to accelerate sales of a potential product. The trick is to keep those managers in check until the product is truly ready for prime time." Bethesda has been producing commercial software for a very long time. You have to believe that Microsoft executives will respond to Bethesda's input."

Weaver described the relationship between Bethesda and Microsoft before and after the release of the Xbox version of Morrowind as "excellent," saying, "I was close to key members of the original Xbox development team and shared many of their thoughts on what the "next generation" console would bring to gaming I had a great time with them," he said. He described Microsoft's acquisition of Bungie and other studios as "visionary."

On the topic of whether he thinks Bethesda's future games will ultimately be Xbox-only, Weaver said, "I don't think it's a coincidence that this announcement came so close to Sony's PS5 announcement. There are only a limited number of proven AAA creators. What Microsoft owns, Sony can't get."

Christopher Weaver founded Bethesda Softworks in 1986, where he created the physics football game "Gridiron! and served as producer on the first two "Elder Scrolls" games. He then co-founded ZeniMax Media, Bethesda's parent company, before leaving to pursue a career in academia.