Summary
- Todd Howard stated that Xbox console exclusivity made Starfield a "better product" by allowing developers to concentrate their resources and deliver a higher quality game.
- Exclusives have long been a part of the gaming industry, and Howard believes associating certain brands with specific platforms can have a real benefit.
- Howard also argued that being under Microsoft's corporate umbrella boosted Bethesda despite the exclusivity trade-off, as Starfield is expected to become the biggest launch in the studio's history, likely due to the game's availability on Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox console exclusivity made Starfield a "better product," according to Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard. The industry veteran defended Starfield's omission from the PS5 as 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 that Starfield would 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 for Starfield's Xbox exclusivity.
Two years later, Howard went on record to claim that the exclusivity benefited Starfield, 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 of Zelda, you think of the Switch," the famous game designer explained.
And though exclusivity deals inevitably make content less accessible, Howard argued that being under Microsoft's corporate umbrella still provided a big enough boost to Bethesda to offset that trade-off. Elaborating on that point, the official revealed that the studio expects Starfield to be the biggest launch in its history, player count-wise. That's presumably because Starfield was a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass, which Microsoft said surpassed 25 million subscribers in late 2022.
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 on Starfield, a figure that's on the lower end of what a AAA open-world RPG warrants nowadays.
For reference, Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios has a similar headcount – not accounting for its outsourced localization teams – and its latest game launched in a buggier state than Starfield, largely due to its problematic third act. That's in spite of the fact that Larian delayed the PS5 version of Baldur's Gate 3 by a full month in order to focus on its PC release, while pushing back the Xbox Series X/S port even further. So, while even Bethesda was once puzzled with Microsoft's approach to platform exclusives, Howard's claim that console exclusivity ultimately helped Starfield is not necessarily just him paying lip service to Xbox.
Starfield is available now for PC and Xbox Series X/S.