Starfield is one of the most eagerly anticipated games of 2023 without question. Some gamers, though, were not pleased by the fact that the role-playing game set in space won’t be releasing on PS5, something which Bethesda Game Studios had announced a while back.
You see, undoubtedly at some point game makers Bethesda did have the intention of putting out Starfield on PlayStation consoles, but once Microsoft acquired it and its parent company ZeniMax Media, that possibility evaporated…
But choosing to make Starfield an Xbox exclusive was something that Microsoft did not take lightly, and new documents released as part of its clash with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC for short) in the US due to its acquisition of Activision Blizzard have shed new light on things, as was recently reported on Eurogamer.
Actually, Microsoft’s CFO (which stands for Chief Financial Officer, by the way) Tim Stuart said that despite expecting to sell 10 million units for Starfield, it choose the exclusivity path, making up for the losses via console sales and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions.
“When Microsoft evaluated [the] exclusivity of ZeniMax games in December 2020, despite having more than 10 million units forecasted for both Starfield and Indiana Jones on PlayStation, Microsoft believed it could offset losses incurred from taking ZeniMax games exclusive through upside to Game Pass and increased console sales”, reads the court document according to this tweet.
The 10 million unit target apparently also applied to Bethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones game, which won’t be hitting the PS5 either.
But right here and now, it’s Starfield that truly matters, as Bethesda’s game is fast approaching its release date, which is September 6 this year.
And the fact that it will be an Xbox Series X/S exclusive (also on PC) will up the pressure on Microsoft and Bethesda Game Studios for the game to succeed, especially taking into account that other high profile, Xbox-only releases such as Redfall have turned out to be a disappointment this year.
So Starfield really needs to be the blockbuster video game Microsoft is hoping for, and the latest previews do suggest this could turn out to be something special, the “Skyrim in space” experience Bethesda has suggested it will be. There’s the draw of exploring the game’s 1,000 planets, and going on missions for the game’s variety of factions, which are bound to be as interesting as anything in the game’s main story is earlier Bethesda games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are any indication.
Here’s hoping, then, and that despite this not arriving on the PS5 this year, that Starfield ends up being worth the wait for the millions of Xbox and PC players who are collectively waiting for its release.