According to sources, we understand that currently Microsoft are planning a launch for Starfield on PlayStation 5 post the release of the already announced “Shattered Space” expansion for Xbox and PC, which is on target to arrive at some point later this year. We’ve also been informed that Microsoft have made additional investment into PlayStation 5 dev kits to support ongoing development efforts – adding further fuel to the fire.
Source: EXCLUSIVE | Microsoft plans Starfield launch for PlayStation 5
During COVID, I and several friends started playing Elder Scrolls Online together on PC. It’s a long story, but we all eventually drifted away from it. Eventually, I literally threw away the 12-year-old potato that I used to play it, and had moved all my gaming to a Playstation (except Civ V on my Mac). Then I suddenly developed serious health issues, and started playing ESO again, on the PlayStation. I was rather enjoying the simplicity of NOT having mods, and liked using a controller for combat much better than a keyboard and mouse.
A year and a half ago, Microsoft was saying that Starfield would be an PC/Xbox exclusive. I was kind of ticked. I had long since made my bed with Playstation, but I expected that the game would be Skyrim-level good, and I got sucked into the hype. So I bought an Xbox in anticipation, months ahead of time. I was replaying Fallout New Vegas in glorious 4K at 60 FPS, but I got the bug to go back to PC for ESO, where I could get mods again, mainly for inventory management. So I sold the Xbox and bought a low-spec gaming PC just for ESO.
Microsoft’s stance on making Starfield an exclusive was heralded by the head of the Xbox decision as a serious business strategy, and something on which they were going to build a new era of gaming competitiveness. When they bought Bethesda, they also made a promise not to touch pre-acquisition IP. Hold this thought.
I bought the digital deluxe pre-release of Starfield on Steam. I played over the weekend before the general release, and thought it sucked. After a dozen hours or so, you will hit a wall with inventory management, and you will naturally build a base to try to fix the problem, and find that bases do not solve anything. Unlike Skyrim or Fallout, there simply is no concept of a bottomless container that keeps a game like this from being insane. Being a pre-release copy, I found that I could refund the purchase before the actual release, so, after 13 hours, I did.
Now that the Microsoft purchase of Activision has “gone through,” they now own Blizzard, which runs World of Warcraft. It is, superficially, very similar to ESO, but has over ten times the number of players. You can just smell that someone high up in Microsoft is asking the question: Why are we paying to develop ESO when we could kill it, and most of the player base would probably move over to WoW? The “synergies” from these two acquisitions must be frighteningly tempting.
They’re reversing course on keeping Starfield exclusive, and now I worry that the other “half” of their promises at the time of the acquisition are similarly precarious. Will they, in fact, start messing with pre-merger games? Will they somehow change the offerings or their monetization to better fit within a corporate strategy which now must be conducive to other franchises that were previously competitors? Microsoft breaks a lot of promises. A lot. Just search on it for yourself.
I’m worried for the future of ESO.
And, while I want a vibrant, competitive landscape in gaming and consoles, and this announcement does not bode well for that, the saltiness of the tears of the fanboys in the Xbox subreddit over this announcement — as Microsoft pulls off their mask, and shows them the face of the monster that hasn’t changed since the 90’s — is just too delicious.
