Will Starfield ever come to PS5? What Phil Spencer said

That question has become harder to answer thanks to the latest twist in Microsoft's plans for Xbox-exclusive games.

Everyone knows that Microsoft bought Bethesda for a staggering $7.5 billion in 2021, but confusion remains over whether the Skyrim studio’s games will appear on consoles outside of Xbox or not.

Will there ever be a Starfield PS5 release? Here's the latest on whether Starfield will come to PlayStation or not.

Will Starfield ever come to PS5?

Starfield might launch on PS5 at some point, but no such release has been announced as of yet.

Rumours intensified earlier this year, with all sorts of rumblings stating that Xbox exclusives like Starfield were going to move out onto other platforms.

However, Microsoft only went on to confirm that Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded and Sea of Thieves would be coming to other systems.

Those four games are the only Xbox titles announced for other platforms. Starfield and Indiana Jones, for the time being, do not seem to be lining up for the same treatment.

That being said, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has recently been quoted in The Verge as saying this: "I don't think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform.

"But I don’t want to create a false expectation on those other platforms that this is somehow the first four to get over the dam and then the dam’s going to open and that everything else is coming, that’s not the plan today.

"I also don’t want to mislead customers on those other platforms. We’re launching these four games, and we’re excited about it. We’re excited about the announce and everything else, but we’ll see what happens for our business."

So you're saying there's a chance...?

Time will tell if Starfield is actually going to release on PS5, and what Xbox has up its sleeves for the future of its game publishing arm. We'll update this page with new information once it becomes available.

Why is Starfield an Xbox exclusive?

Starfield launched as an Xbox exclusive because Microsoft bought its developer, Bethesda Softworks, when it acquired its parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion back in 2021. The studio is now part of Xbox Game Studios.

There was some initial confusion over what games would remain multi-platform - including Starfield, which was already confirmed to be in development at that point.

During the court hearings over Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the head of the Xbox brand, Phil Spencer, implied that Bethesda was bought to keep Starfield off of PlayStation.

Spencer explained (thanks, Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach): "When [Microsoft] acquired Zenimax, one of the impetuses for that was that Sony had done a deal for Death Loop and Ghostwire and [would] pay effectively Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox, so the discussion about Starfield, when we heard that Starfield is potentially also gonna end up skipping Xbox, [was that] we can’t be in a position as a third place console."

Based on this, it appears as though Microsoft essentially bought Bethesda to stop Starfield from becoming a PS5 exclusive.

In the FTC document (page 122), Microsoft Gaming CFO Tim Stuart adds that Starfield had more than "10 million units forecasted… on PlayStation, Microsoft believed it could offset losses incurred from taking ZeniMax games exclusive through upside to Game Pass and increased console sales".

So, it's safe to assume that’s why Starfield launched as an Xbox Series X/S console exclusive: to drive console and Game Pass sales.

Now, though, we could be getting Starfield on PS5. What a strange and U-turny world we live in. We'll update this page with any new information that might come to light.

Read more on Starfield:

• Starfield missions list - how far are you?
• Starfield tips and tricks - how to get started
• Starfield romance - all potential relationships
• Starfield character creation - all your options explained
• Starfield digipick - how to lockpick
• How long is Starfield? The hours you'll need
• Starfield cast - all voice actors
• Starfield companions - who to recruit
• Starfield soundtrack - how to listen
• Starfield storage guide - don't be overburdened
• Starfield FOV - change your point of view
• Starfield FPS - developers explain 30fps
• Starfield PC requirements - specs needed
• Starfield performance - potential fixes
• Starfield factions - all possible groups

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