Summary
Xbox console exclusivity madeStarfielda “better product,” according to Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard. The industry veteran defendedStarfield’somission from the PS5as part of a recent interview that also saw him provide some insights into the advantages of platform exclusives from a developer’s perspective.
The fact thatStarfieldwould end up circumventing the PS5 became apparent as soon as Microsoft completed its acquisition of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax Media in March 2021. Once PlayStation officially lost the space-faring RPG,Bethesda even apologized to PS5 players forStarfield’sXbox exclusivity.
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Two years later, Howard went on record to claim that the exclusivity benefitedStarfield, not least because it allowed the developers to concentrate their resources. That “ability to focus” on one or fewer platforms “always yields a better product,” the Bethesda official said in a recent interview with BBC. Howard also asserted that exclusives have been an inherent part of the gaming industry for a long time, positing how there’s “a real benefit” to the fact that people associate certain brands with games, and vice versa. “When you think ofZelda, you think of the Switch,” the famous game designer explained.
While some PlayStation fans might be quick to point out that someone in Howard’s position has little choice but to be fully behind console exclusivity decisions that are above their pay grade, that’s not to say the official was necessarily exaggerating the benefits of having fewer platforms to focus on. Namely, Bethesda is still a fairly small studio relative to the immense success that it consistently enjoyed since the turn of the century, with industry insider David Reitman recently reporting that the developer had a team of “over 500” people working onStarfield, a figure that’s on the lower end of what a AAA open-world RPG warrants nowadays.
For reference,Baldur’s Gate 3developer Larian Studios has a similar headcount – not accounting for its outsourced localization teams – and its latest game launched in a buggier state thanStarfield, largely due to its problematic third act. That’s in spite of the fact that Larian delayed the PS5 version ofBaldur’s Gate 3by a full month to focus on its PC release, while pushing back the Xbox Series X/S port even further. So, while evenBethesda was once puzzled with Microsoft’s approach to platform exclusives, Howard’s claim that console exclusivity ultimately helpedStarfieldis not necessarily just him paying lip service to Xbox.
Starfieldis available now for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
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