Starfield not coming to PS5 means more focus and "a better product," Todd Howard says

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He still wants everybody to be able to play

Starfield
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Starfield will be a stronger game because it's exclusively coming to PC and Xbox Series X and S, according to Bethesda Games Studios boss Todd Howard. So all hope of Starfield on PS4 or PS5 are officially dead.

The Xbox E3 2021 presentation finally let the other shoe drop when it confirmed Starfield is a full-on Xbox exclusive, and it won't be coming to PS5 (or Switch) - the news we'd been waiting to hear ever since Microsoft announced it was buying Bethesda last year. It seems like a shrewd business move on Microsoft's part, of course, since it means everyone who wants to play the next game from one of the most popular studios in the business will need to play on a Microsoft platform. But Howard told The Telegraph that it will also mean good things for players, even as it means part of its audience may be regrettably left out for the time being.

"You don’t ever want to leave people out, right? But at the end of the day, your ability to focus and say, this is the game I want to make, these are the platforms I want to make it on, and being able to really lean in on those is going to make for a better product," Howard says.

Bethesda is also a 'big believer' in the ways Microsoft is expanding games to more people, Howard adds, including integrating with PC and cloud streaming, and including Starfield in Xbox Game Pass from day one. He believes this arrangement ultimately means that more people, not fewer, will be able to play Starfield. Meanwhile, if you've been looking forward to Starfield ever since it was announced in 2018 but have no plans to start playing in Microsoft-land, you might not want to abandon all hope just yet.

“Well, we’re still…” Howard starts to say when the Telegraph asks if he regrets the fact that his games will no longer be playable on PlayStation. “I will just say I want everybody to have the ability to play it in some fashion.”

Check out everything we already know about Starfield ship customization and start planning your ride. 

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.