Amid Microsoft’s multiplatform video game push, all sorts of Xbox games are rumored to be set for the PlayStation 5 and the recently announced Nintendo Switch 2. But could Bethesda’s Starfield be among them?
In an interview with IGN’s former Director of Video Content Strategy, Destin Legarie, for his new Patreon-funded show Save State Plus, Microsoft’s gaming boss Phil Spencer was asked directly whether he could confirm that Starfield was staying Xbox exclusive for the time being.
Phil Spencer on Starfield exclusivity
Destin: “Can you solidify that Starfield is staying put for the time being?”
Spencer: “No.”
Source: https://t.co/ccNXLG6GU5 pic.twitter.com/r6sfx9e193
— Destin (@DestinLegarie) January 25, 2025
“No,” was Spencer’s response.
“There’s no specific game… this kind of goes back to my red line answer. There’s no reason for me to put a ring fence around any game and say this game will not go to a place where it would find players, where it would have business success for us. What we find is we’re able to drive a better business that allows us to invest in great game lineup, like you saw. And that’s our strategy. Our strategy is to allow our games to be available, Game Pass is an important component of playing the games on our platform. But to keep games off of other platforms, that’s not a path for us. It doesn’t work for us. What we’re doing now, we think really enables us to build the best platform for the world’s best games.
“The world’s biggest games are available in multiple places. And more and more creators are asking us, ‘how do we stay connected when our game might be playable in all these different places?’ And we want Xbox to be absolutely the platform that enables that.
“We think that makes us unique. Most of the other platforms out there are single platform on single device. Whether that’s PC, whether that’s mobile, whether it’s a console. And we want Xbox to be a platform that enables creators across any screen that people want to play on.”
Starfield and MachineGames’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle were both reported as being considered for PS5 as far back as March 2024. Indy ended up confirmed for PS5 with a spring 2025 release window, a few months after its release on PC and Xbox Series X and S. But Starfield is yet to be confirmed for PS5, although Spencer’s comments here certainly suggest it’s on the cards.
A number of Xbox games are currently available on PS5, including Rare’s Sea of Thieves, Tango Gameworks’ Hi-fi Rush, and Obsidian’s Grounded and Pentiment. Microsoft already publishes Minecraft games on PlayStation consoles, among many other platforms, and is set to publish Doom: The Dark Ages and Ninja Gaiden 4 on PS5 later this year. There are even reports that Microsoft is finally ready to release Halo on PlayStation after decades of Xbox exclusivity.
Meanwhile, Spencer has teased Microsoft’s plan to release Xbox games on Nintendo Switch 2, reinforcing recent reports that indicate the company is set to back the next-gen console in a big way.
Spencer has said Xbox’s multiplatform push is in part about bringing in more money to Microsoft’s gaming business — with the pressure now on to deliver following its eye-watering $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard.
“We run a business,” Spencer said in August last year. “It’s definitely true inside of Microsoft the bar is high for us in terms of the delivery we have to give back to the company. Because we get a level of support from the company that’s just amazing and what we’re able to go do.
“So I look at this, how can we make our games as strong as possible? Our platform continues to grow, on console, on PC, and on cloud. It’s just going to be a strategy that works for us.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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