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Starfield is a success. What does that mean for the future of Xbox?

Tomas Franzese
By
Key art for Starfield
Bethesda Game Studios

Starfield was one of the most vital video game launches ever.

The last couple of years have been full of whiplash for Xbox fans, full of high highs and low lows. After a solid fall 2021 game lineup, 2022 was comparatively barren for first-party Xbox games. Microsoft then started the year on a strong note with Hi-Fi Rush’s surprise launch before crashing and burning with the disastrous release of Redfall, the first heavily marketed AAA game coming out from Bethesda after it was acquired by Microsoft. Starfield, a game that many were uneasy about due to its scope, would inadvertently become a make-or-break moment for Microsoft.

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In May, I wrote that Starfield was “the most pivotal game for the future of the Xbox brand since Halo: Combat Evolved” because of what I thought was at stake if it failed. Well, Starfield just launched, and … it’s a hit. It’s not the genre-defining, industry-changing mega-RPG that some fans were lauding it as prerelease. However, it’s still an enjoyable sci-fi adventure that’s receiving positive attention despite some drawbacks. And it’s already earned over 1 million concurrent players across all platforms. Digital Trends gave it a three-and-a-half star review, writing, “though it can’t nearly deliver on Bethesda’s intergalactic ambitions, Starfield is an impressive space RPG filled with impactful decisions.” On Steam, over 24,000 reviews are averaging a ‘Very Positive” consensus.

While not a total stunner, Starfield hasn’t derailed Xbox or caused the public to lose faith in its first-party games; in fact, it has renewed some confidence. Reassessing Xbox’s future post-Starfield, it’s clear that it’s still reliant on something it has struggled with this entire console generation: consistency.

It’s all about consistency

Despite the success of Xbox Game Pass and some excellent first-party games like Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush, Microsoft has struggled to establish consistency across messaging, game launch cadence, and quality. That has hurt it this console generation, where it has felt like Xbox has promised more than it’s delivered despite several game company acquisitions and exciting announcements. It doesn’t help that Sony and Nintendo have been at the top of their game in regard to those things in recent years.

Players approach a vampire in Redfall.
Bethesda Softworks

That’s ultimately what put so much pressure on Redfall and Starfield. They needed to pay off an expensive Bethesda acquisition and usher in a steady stream of new Xbox games. Perhaps that’s why the poor quality of Redfall felt like such a slap in the face for Xbox fans. What should’ve cemented a consistent Xbox first-party output instead highlighted all of its problems. This made Xbox’s situation heading into Starfield’s launch feel dire, even more so than it actually was in reality for a branch of a megacorporation like Microsoft.

But now Starfield is here and people like it, even if it has some evident flaws. Starfield was neither the Redfall-level critical flop that would kill Xbox nor the 11/10 game some people expected. It’s just an entertaining RPG that Xbox players can lose themselves in and feel a little bit of console pride over. The vibes across the Xbox community are mostly positive right now, and Microsoft needs to maintain that feeling.

The weak first-party 2022 lineup and the rough state of Redfall left us wondering if the only thing Xbox was consistent at was disappointment, but Starfield and other recent efforts from Microsoft-owned studios indicate that this is not the case. Since Redfall, we’ve got a big Monkey Island-themed update for Sea of Thieves, an excellent remaster of Quake II, a solid Xbox Series X/S port of Age of Empires IV, and Starfield to show that Xbox’s studios are back on track. It’s up to the Xbox team to keep up that momentum after Forza Motorsport launches and the Activision Blizzard acquisition finally concludes this October.

A ship lands on a planet in Starfield.
Bethesda

Its 2024 game lineup looks healthy following an excellent Xbox Games Showcase in June, thanks to games like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Avowed, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Beyond that, there are games like South of Midnight, Clockwork Revolution, Fable, State of Decay 3, and The Outer Worlds 2, plus expansions for Starfield and other projects. If the Xbox game release cadence gets steady once again and all of the titles are at the quality level of, if not better than, Starfield, then things are looking up for Microsoft.

The peaks and valleys of Microsoft’s gaming efforts have been a wild roller-coaster ride for years, and it’s clear that Xbox is back on the upswing after Starfield. All the pieces are here for Microsoft to take the positive notes from this vital Starfield launch and its future game lineup and start delivering quality games on a more consistent basis. There won’t be another single game that makes or breaks Xbox over the next several years; it will come down to whether or not Xbox can capitalize on what it now has following the successful launch of Starfield.

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Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Turn your Xbox Series X into a Starfield machine with this console wrap
The Starfield Xbox Series X Console Cover.

Microsoft announced that official Xbox Series X Console Wraps will come out later this year. Three of these are already available to preorder, including one based on Bethesda Game Studios' highly anticipated Xbox console exclusive Starfield.
Following in the footsteps of customizable PlayStation 5 console covers, Microsoft is finally giving people more options to customize their normal Xbox Series X series. That comes in the form of Xbox Series X Console Wraps, which Microsoft says are "made with solid panels and an engirdled fabric," and are "designed to perfectly surround your Xbox Series X" without blocking the console's vents and airflow like some of the other current third-party options. The first Xbox Series X Console Wrap to release is based on Starfield and will come out on October 18.

Its design lines up with the special Starfield headset and controller and is based on the avionics modules players will encounter during the game. The Starfield Console Wrap will cost $50 when it launches in October, but two more Consoles Wraps launching a month later will come in slightly cheaper at $45.
Those two Console Wraps use soft microfiber fabric and feature designs based on camouflage, with the Mineral Camo Console Wrap using blues and purples and the Artic Camo Console Wrap featuring gray and white tones. Both Camo Console Wraps release on November 10, the three-year anniversary of the Xbox Series X launch.

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The impending Xbox 360 Store closure makes me wary of Game Pass’ future
The Xbox logo.

I'm an avid Xbox Game Pass user, often trying almost every game that comes to the service and closely following the games coming to and leaving the service each month. Following some recent announcements by Microsoft, though, I've been thinking a lot more about something else about Xbox Game Pass and Microsoft's current digital-focused Xbox storefronts and ecosystem: what happens when it all goes away?
Microsoft announced last week that it will shut down the Xbox 360 Store in July 2024. After that day, it will be impossible to buy games, movies, or TV shows digitally on the Xbox 360 store; it's just like what happened with the 3DS and Wii U eShops earlier this year. That announcement also came not long after Microsoft revealed it would replace Xbox Live Gold with Xbox Game Pass Core in September. With these changes, Microsoft is stamping out any support or focus its giving to the Xbox 360's era as a platform. As someone who grew up mostly playing Xbox 360, seeing these things I grew up with go away is saddening. It's also making me think about the day this will eventually happen to Xbox Game Pass or the store on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

Frankly, I'm not as concerned that Microsoft is going to do it anytime soon. Microsoft has given no indication that it plans on abandoning Xbox Game Pass. It's a really successful subscription service heavily integrated into all of its current platforms, there are titles confirmed to launch day one on it into 2024 and beyond, and Xbox initiatives like Play Anywhere and Smart Delivery ensure that at least some version of most Xbox games are available on other platforms. While I expect it to be the primary part of Microsoft's gaming strategy over the next decade, as someone who mainly played Xbox 360 growing up and is now seeing its storefront and subscription service go away, I'm now thinking about what the end of the Game Pass era will look like.
These recent actions have indicated that Microsoft will eventually be willing to do the same to the storefronts and subscription service we're currently using. Even after the backlash PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox all faced from these announcements, Sony is the only one that has backtracked its plans to close down older digital storefronts, at least temporarily. Xbox Game Pass is the current hotness for Microsoft, but what happens come the day it isn't? A lot more games are digital-only or tied to a subscription this generation, and those are the games most at risk of being lost if a digital storefront shuts down.
What happens to the Xbox console versions of games like Pentiment or Immortality on Xbox once Xbox Game Pass and the current iteration of the Xbox Store are shuttered? Yes, they can be played on PC, but the Xbox console version will be lost forever. And right now, it doesn't seem like Microsoft has any publicly shared plans to permanently preserve those experiences, nor has it done so for all of the Xbox 360 digital games going away. Game preservation is a significant problem facing the game industry, and Microsoft has just made a move showing that it's on the wrong side of that effort. 

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Starfield’s file size is massive no matter what platform you’re playing on
A spacecraft in Starfield.

The file sizes for Starfield finally appeared across some of the storefronts it's available on now that it's available to preload. As a result, we've learned just how massive the game is.
On Steam, Bethesda recommends that players have 125 GB of space for the game, but Microsoft's own launcher shows an even bigger PC install size of 139.84 GB for Starfield. That size is only slightly smaller on the console, with the Xbox Store showing me that the game will take up 117.07 GB on my Xbox Series X. It's now very understandable why Microsoft is launching a 1 TB version of the Xbox Series S around Starfield; still, the game will even take over a tenth of that system's memory if players aren't expanding it at all. 
This 110+ GB file size across all platforms for Starfield demonstrates just how big Bethesda's upcoming sci-fi RPG will be. It also follows a recent trend of even single-player taking up gigantic chunks of your game system's memory. This year alone, we've seen Star Wars Jedi: Survivor take up over 130 GB of space on consoles, while Baldur's Gate 3 clocks in at 125.14 GB currently. As games get bigger with more detail, it's clear that our gaming platforms will be able to accommodate fewer and fewer games on their SSDs going forward. 
At least you can play the game via Xbox Cloud Gaming if none of your platforms can accommodate that file size. Starfield will be released for PC and Xbox Series X/S on September 6. Those who pre-order the Premium Edition will get access on September 1, though.  

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