Todd Howard on Starfield Skipping PS5: Fewer Platforms Makes for Better Games - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2021 / 2,975 Views
Publisher Bethesda Softworks and developer Bethesda Game Studios over the weekend announced at E3 2021 Starfield will be an Xbox console exclusive and it will launch on November 11, 2022 for the Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard in an interview with The Telegraph said being able to focus on fewer platforms, since the game isn't coming to the PlayStation 5, will make for a better game.
"Pick a side' meaning… PlayStation? Is that what you mean? Well.. a little bit," said Howard. "You don’t ever want to leave people out, right? But at the end of the day, your ability to focus and say, this is the game I want to make, these are the platforms I want to make it on, and being able to really lean in on those is going to make for a better product.
"By focusing on those platforms, you really get to lean in a lot on making it the best it can be for those systems. [...] And we’re big believers in all of the avenues that Xbox and Microsoft are doing to get games to more people. Whether that’s the integration with the PC, which is huge for us, the cloud streaming and all those things.
"So I think it’s about taking a long term view. And our belief that those things are really fundamentally good. So we see it actually opening up more and more and more so that people’s ability to play our games - via GamePass and other things - their ability to play our games doesn’t go down. It goes up dramatically.
"And I can say I’m proud to be part of Xbox. I think it’s great for the community of gamer."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Can't wait to see what this does for ES and Fallout. A comment like this should translate to, "Our game might actually release without bugs now."
All eyes on you Todd!
Sony would agree with that statement and I think the results speak for themselves.
I'm really excited to see how BGS redeem themselves here! You can tell there's excitement within the studio about this game and were tired of working on Fallout only for so long, and it showed in Fallout 76. Even Ashely Cheng made a statement that the studio has a new vitality due to Starfield. He even said "I love Fallout. But after seven years of Fallout, it's a little nice to slip away to be working on something so new and fresh"
BGS really seem to be taking this universe seriously and I love the premise that Todd said they were going to a more hardcore RPG roots with this game. Trying to contain my excitement, but man is it hard not to be excited!
Clearly a moneyhat. Why else would they pick Xbox?
As it should be. Just focus on your platforms which not only also helps developers but also help to improve the brand.
Why not have the damn courage to say since we are now owned by MS , XBOX and PC are now our platforms of choice and even if we were faced with a very best scenario that showed PS platform sales matching PC and Xbox combined we are no longer invested in multiplatform console development.
Oh, please.
What a load of bull. Do people actually believe him? Both systems have an ssd drive and share the same pc based processor and gpu, and this guy is talking as though making it for another console is a hindrance, lol. Oh so making their games for series s with less ram and gpu is better than making the game for series x and ps5 , ok.
By the way, that creation engine is an outdated mess. Maybe todd should consider using unreal engine for the games going forward.
Sound like a bitter ex girlfriend.
am I wrong?
Still, can't deny that was xbox pr talk. if they were making the game for ps5 and claimed that the end product wasn't as good because of multiple systems or that they couldn't achieve their goals, then the blame would go to them being lazy or simply not good enough developers.
Yes their are differences but nothing major and far less than PC with Nvidia AMD and all the spec variations , plus we have continually heard from developers about the ease of cross development,
That's true, but that's also a nice spin on the situation. The real reason for this is Microsoft and not this improving the games. What improves the games even more is making more money from a larger audience and being able to afford creating better games. While what he says is true, in the end it's just PR with not that much point behind it.
Lamest excuses - which we are going to hear a lot more now.
From start to finish, a game consists of getting an idea, transfer the idea into a workable game on paper, creating the assests, coding the game. Only the last part is platform dependent, and platform differences make a small part of the coding problem, often engines take care of the major parts, particularly as the XBX and PS5 are architecturaly pretty much the same.
MS simply wants to throw monkey wrenches into Sony's path as they still are the underdog.
Yes I agree. Very excited to see how this game turns out.
No. The game engine is severely lagging behind
It's a new engine, Creation Engine 2.
i'll be looking forward to see what it does, because judging from the trailer, i wasn't impressed with the lighting and the texture work.
Essay Pro