Starfield was the star of the show yesterday between the new trailer, the massive Starfield Direct, the opening of the pre-orders (and branded accessories), and the PC system requirements. Unsurprisingly, it was also a talking point when Microsoft Gaming executives Phil Spencer (CEO) and Matt Booty (Head of Xbox Game Studios) joined the GiantBomb crew for an interview.
The two executives revealed that Starfield was supposed to launch earlier even than the previous date of November 11th, 2022, before Microsoft closed the $7.5 billion acquisition of parent company ZeniMax. Microsoft told them to take their time to polish the game, putting a lot of QA at work, which paid off as the game would already have less bugs than any Bethesda title even if it shipped today.
Phil Spencer: I’ll say the team has definitely matured. They’ve got Fallout and Elder Scrolls under their belt. Truth be told, when the acquisition closed, this game had a significantly earlier ship date, even earlier than the date we had first set for Starfield. We sat down with Todd and the team and explained that we wanted to give this team the time. I think Matt says we have every QA person in our entire company playing Starfield right now, looking at bug counts, looking at quality of where we are. The nice thing about what we showed today from my perspective is that was the game. We’ve been playing the game for quite a while and that is the game. I’ll also say, when you look at things like Skyrim, it’s not like that team hasn’t launched games that hit the level of expectations. I love the anticipation and I love the reaction. We didn’t know what the reaction would be on 40-plus-minutes of showcase for one game. We didn’t know what the engagement was going to be like online. It was pretty amazing to see.
Matt Booty: We do have an awful lot of people internally playing Starfield. Working with Todd and the team, I see bug counts, and just by the numbers if it shipped today Starfield would already have the fewest bugs of any game Bethesda has ever shipped. Also, I think about Skyrim and where that community still is over ten years later. You start to things about other things that they’ve done with the game. I think there’s a potential that will get unlocked in the game over time as people discover everything.
Phil Spencer: And they haven’t talked about everything.
Bethesda Game Studios has another two months and a half to improve Starfield even further. The game is set to launch on September 6th for PC and Xbox Series S|X. Game Pass subscribers will get it added to their libraries from day one, and after today’s news, there’s a chance they might even stream it to GeForce NOW.
