Starfield delay was “the right move”

We've seen plenty of game delays in 2022, but the biggest was Starfield, taking what would have been a pillar holiday title out of the line-up. While Starfield won't be the big holiday season hit Microsoft wanted, the company says the delay was ultimately the right move. 

Delaying a game is almost always the right move, even if there is some initial fan disappointment and backlash. Pushing a game out too soon can lead to disastrous results and it can take a long time to win people back, as we saw with Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man's Sky, both of which took more than a year after launch to get back on track.

Speaking on the Decoder Podcast this week, Phil Spencer discussed the Starfield and Redfall delays, both of which are now scheduled for the first half of 2023. Essentially, Spencer wanted to use this opportunity to give additional support to Bethesda and Arkane.

“In hindsight, when you look at a game like Starfield, it’s taken so long and so much investment in new IP from the team. The decision to give the team the time to build the game that they feel they should be building is just the right thing to do.”

Due to Xbox's other revenue streams, these teams can now take more time to really polish up their games. As we know from past experience, Bethesda does tend to launch its major titles with more than a few bugs left to be squashed. With this delay, hopefully Starfield's launch will be smoother than past releases.

Still, the decision to delay a game isn't something Xbox takes lightly either. As Spencer says, pushing a game back has financial implications and there are a lot of things you have to weigh out in the process, such as expected growth and revenue adjustments.

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KitGuru Says: Starfield looks to be hugely ambitious, so the delay wasn't too surprising. We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that the game does make it out sometime in the first half of next year and isn't pushed further to the 2023 holiday season. 

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