The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Modding Article

GameSpy has put together a three-page article that details the modding capabilities of both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The article includes quite a bit of commentary from Bethesda’s Pete Hines, as well. An excerpt:

“We’re definitely planning on doing downloads to Marketplace.” Hines said, “along with quite a few other things that we’re investigating we can’t really talk about yet.” While Bethesda’s content will obviously be “official” and available through officially supported Microsoft channels, There are other questions that have yet to be answered — namely, will the arrival of Oblivion mark the true arrival of a mod scene in the console world? “That’s one of the biggest questions we’re looking at right now.” Hines said. Apparently there are more than a few technical hurdles to overcome. Is there a way to translate the construction set so that people can use it on the console and create their own mods? The Oblivion construction set is far more than just designing a few levels for a Tony Hawk, and the team is currently hard at work designing solutions that work within the 360’s hardware and controller requirements. Then, once a level is created, where are players allowed to store it? Where can they trade it and can they make it available to others?

The biggest hurdles to mod sharing on the Xbox, though, seem to be regulatory and business-oriented. Microsoft has said many times that they want people to be able to use the 360 as a multimedia device, which inherently means allowing people to store and send their own media on the system. There is however, a perception on the part of consumers that what comes through a console is somehow vetted or “endorsed” by either the maker of the console (in this case Microsoft) or by the creator of the original title.