In today’s hearing on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s case against Microsoft’s Activision-Blizzard acquisition, Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed that Sony was looking to make upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield a PlayStation console exclusive. This incentivized Microsoft’s buyout of game publisher ZeniMax Media (which included Bethesda) in 2021, with Starfield now being an Xbox/PC title instead.
Here’s the full quote from Spencer:
When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire… to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox. So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can’t be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content ownership so we’ve had to secure content to remain viable in the business.
Yesterday, it was revealed that the untitled Indiana Jones game by MachineGames was to be developed for multiple consoles before becoming an Xbox console exclusive. While Starfield’s case seems similar at a glance, Sony’s desire to make it a PlayStation exclusive meant that it wouldn’t have been released on Xbox at all. Other ZeniMax games in Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo were targeted with exclusivity deals in the past, with Ghostwire Tokyo just recently arriving on Xbox Series X|S and the Xbox Game Pass last April.
Starfield is currently slated for a September 6 release date on Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Source: The Verge