In an interview, Pete Hines, the head of Bethesda, explains what makes the Game Pass so good. After all, the role-playing game Starfield is not coming to PlayStation 5. Are there any concerns about lower sales numbers?
What’s happening with Starfield? For a few days now, owners can already dive into the new space role-playing game from Bethesda through Early Access. The official release for all players without early access will take place on Wednesday, September 6, 2023. However, the game is only being released for Xbox Series X|S and PC. No release is planned for PS4 and PS5.
JeuxVideo conducted an interview with Pete Hines, Head of Publishing at Bethesda Softworks, during gamescom 2023. They asked if there are worries about the sales numbers.
“That’s strange […] but now we like it”
What does Pete Hines say? In the interview, he is asked if he is worried about the game’s sales numbers because it is not being released for PlayStation 5. He responds:
In the USA, the Game Pass Ultimate costs 17 dollars (about 15 euros in Germany). For 17 dollars, you can connect a controller to Samsung TVs and play Starfield without owning a console. The Game Pass drives me crazy! I’m an old man; I was born when there were no video games, no consoles, no PCs, no mobile phones. The fact that you don’t even need a console to play the biggest Bethesda game ever made on Xbox is an incredible level of accessibility.
You can play it on anything that can run a browser. I tested it with a Kindle Fire, a phone. You click on Link Cloud and play Starfield. So if you’re a PlayStation player, you won’t be playing on your PlayStation, of course.
PlayStation players, on the other hand, can play the entire Xbox Game Pass catalog for 17 US dollars per month, which is not insignificant. They can play Starfield, Forza, and everything else they want. They can play at home or at work, thanks to the browser-based cloud. (…) That’s strange for us because throughout our entire existence, we’ve been asked to pay full price to play our games. There were no subscriptions. But now we like it. We are building an audience.
As early as June 2021, shortly after E3, Hines commented on this topic. He feels sorry that PS5 fans are sad, but he did not apologize for the exclusivity.
However, it almost turned out very differently, and PC and Xbox players would have found the disadvantage on their side. Xbox head Phil Spencer explained that Starfield almost became an exclusive title for PS5. Supposedly, Sony was already negotiating a deal. But then Microsoft stepped in.
On which platform are you playing Starfield? Are you also using the cloud technology of the Game Pass for it?
