Why Starfield won't be on PS5: Platform, release date, and more

Starfield, the brand new sci-fi RPG in the making by Bethesda, is poised to be released on November 11 later this year. Unlike previous Bethesda titles, the upcoming one will not be coming to PlayStation consoles.

Following Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax in March 2021, many industry insiders suspected that upcoming Bethesda titles would be exclusive to Xbox and PC, which seems to be true in Starfield’s case.

In the arms race of acquiring studios by Xbox and PlayStation in the recent past, there has been unprecedented consolidation in the game development industry. Xbox has doubled down on its Game Pass, a subscription-based service that offers PC and Xbox users a vast library of games at a cheap monthly rate. The console war of this generation has taken the form of platform exclusives.

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Alienating PS5 users, Starfield will be limited to PC and Xbox Series X/S

Previously, all acclaimed Bethesda titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and more have come out on all major platforms. As such, gamers had no problem playing their favorite Bethesda title on whatever platform they owned. This will not be the case anymore, starting with Starfield.

While PlayStation consoles represent a significant portion of the gaming populace, Xbox is banking on the Game Pass to reach a huge player base. After witnessing the huge player count of Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite after their release in late 2021, it is evident that Game Pass has enabled Microsoft to make titles available to players who otherwise wouldn't have purchased them.

Xbox head Phil Spencer said:

“You can see it with Forza and Halo, the last releases. Those are the most played games in those franchises because we made them available on more screens than we ever have, through more business models than we've ever made them available.”

Spencer also holds a similar vision regarding Bethesda's upcoming title. He stated,

“So when I look at the teams, when Todd [Howard, Bethesda director] and I talk about Starfield, it’s: ‘How do we make sure this is the most-played Todd Howard game ever?’”

Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite both saw around 20 million gamers playing the game on release. Going by that metric, Starfield may surpass that count, given the hype surrounding the new title from Bethesda. After 25 years, this is the first time they will come out with a new IP.

After being in the making for almost a decade, Bethesda head Todd Howard stated that the sci-fi outer space RPG would leverage the latest generation of hardware to its full extent.

There’s no doubt that this is not a good scenario for gamers owning a PS5. This is, unfortunately, the result of the rapid consolidation of the industry and the arms race of studio acquisitions.

Starfield will be released on PC and Xbox Series X/S on November 11, 2022.