Todd Howard Says Xbox's Support On Starfield Has Been 'Incredible'

I wonder if some of what was shown at the Starfield direct would've been cut content without the delay or Xbox's support.

Another day, another fluff piece

This is really positive. The competition has been sharing techniques and expertise between internal teams for a while, and as xbox continue to add great new studios, this type of cross team expertise sharing can help improve xbox games to the benefit of all.

As if he would tell something different to the press. What a joke 😂
So no 16h working days and no women were harmed in the development?

Todd and Phil are really hyping this game up again and again. It better be great! I'm looking forward to it but the more it gets hyped the more I'm expecting it to be let down. Hopefully the story will keep me gripped enough to get through it but if it ends up too large without decent story I may struggle (was my biggest problem with No Mans Sky).
Also love how they are repeating that they've had Xbox QA's testing the quality. Makes me think they expect perfect performance which is nigh on impossible the bigger and more ambitious the game gets!

@Nintendo4Sonic well they did admit they didn't help Redfall, this is reassuring that this isn't happening on starfield. What else could you be looking for?

@StonyKL I like skyrim more than fallout. Fallout setting isnt a setting I like being immersed in. But starfield looks great and doing all the right things

Well duh! It's not like he will ever say anything else.

It would be actual news if he did. Like he said he hates Xbox and had to fight them every step to get Starfield released. That would be news worthy.

This is just corporate ass kissing at its worst.

Go back to Fallout 76's 'disaster' of a Launch and who did Todd Howard call? Phil Spencer.

He [Todd Howard] tied the story of Fallout 76's launch to Bethesda's ongoing relationship with Microsoft, saying that at the time he had called Phil Spencer, the head of the Xbox brand. Spencer put Howard in touch with people at Xbox who were able to aggregate data about similar games to help Bethesda focus on solving its most pressing issues.

Interestingly, Howard rounded off his comments by noting that Fallout 76 is now "one of the most-played games on Xbox."

Taken from PC Gamer Mar 11 2021 - in the same article...

To Howard, though, that service-game stumble should be easier to avoid now that Bethesda is under the protective, platform-sized wings of Xbox. Howard was hopeful that the acquisition by Microsoft will help Bethesda's games be better-tested at launch, and that access to the Game Pass ecosystem will enable things like public betas much more easily.

Howard went as far as to imply that being available on Game Pass at launch would have made Fallout 76's first months much easier....

What many seem to forget is that Xbox was 'built' to bring PC games to a console, make them more 'popular' and reach more Gamers - make it easier to port games built for Windows and/or DirectX and put that in a 'console' with a design more 'reminiscent' of a PC. A console with a built in HDD, big, bulky and heavy too - not typical of Consoles of that time...

@Rmg0731 it is called promotion leading to release. Every media company does it. Watch tv this week it is round the clock coverage of how awesome Tom Cruise is. He has a movie releasing this weekend. The entire movie industry is hoping (again) that Cruise can save them. The Xbox brand is counting on Starfield to save it.

Seriously if Starfield flops - the xbox could be done. Like for good. Microsoft doesn't need it at all. It's probably more work than it is worth.

@JON22 It was at least mentioned that the combat/FPS shooting mechanics and feel would be different and likely worse, if not for collaborating with Id, so that's one thing that was shown that would have been different.

@Scummbuddy No, that was an assumption made by people. It was later clarified that Id assisted them with the graphics not the combat.

With Bethesda, Xbox engineers, and AMD engineers all working on this game, Microsoft really needs this one to deliver: it sounds like a ton of money was thrown in its direction.

All first-party games should have this cross-pollination of developers, though. Maybe not to the extent of Starfield where it seems like everyone is trying to push the console to the absolute limit, but enough to ensure optimization efforts are effective in using the hardware properly.

First-party games going forward should sing on Series consoles and have highly optimized DX12 implementation on PC (scaleable multi-threading, no shader compilation stutter, etc.)

I'm glad Starfield is getting the support it needs from Bethesda's other studios, Microsoft & AMD. It also shows how bad of a shape Bethesda was in. But sounds like Microsoft needs to invest in more support teams to prevent another Redfall.

Many mentions to Fallout 76 and Redfall here. Guys, those games, as well as Wolfenstein: Young Blood, are all from a period when Bethesda was chasing the trend of Games as a Service.

Other than the Bethesda Game Studios RPG's, most single-player games Bethesda published were commercial failures. Dishonored, Prey, Wolfenstein... all critically acclaimed but the did not sell enough. That's why Bethesda pivoted to online multiplayer games, something they had no experience with.

But now that they are under Microsoft's umbrella, Bethesda can focus on what it's actually good at, which is single-player games.

@LoquaciousB Now that you say that I believe I did hear that clarification... but promptly forgot it. Thanks!

all this and its still 30 fps only on series x.

@rustyduck

30fps was a purposeful design choice to make the world itself more interactive. For a game like this, I’ll take 30fps with a much more interactive world than 60fps with a static world all day long.

Starfield will still be relevant years down the road. Most AAA games are released and forgotten in a few weeks. Literally counting the days to get my hands on this game.

@Oebimaru and still, that says nothing. Until Starfield is out, I don't believe anything.
And of course, they won't say bad things about Microsoft.

@RIghteousNixon absolutely, I guess some people don't realize, that the Series X is not a power PC. There are limits to the hardware.
And i also think, 30fps is totally fine for a game like this.

More marketing speak from Howard. I've already pre-ordered the game. I don't need any more fluff.

@RIghteousNixon 100% agreed. Starfield will be played for decades.

I'm looking forward to it and expect it to be pretty good.

@Belkan lol at the rate I play games it will likely take me a decade to finish a single playthrough.

I wasn't pumped for this game at all originally because I tend to avoid long games due to limited gaming time...but man after that direct I'm going to have to get into the game.

I'll likely wait a bit post launch to complete some more of the backlog to allow for some patches but I think I'm going to be putting some time into this thing.

This seems like a more practical Star Citizen, with content and a main story that will actually release.

I hope they are putting that same energy towards TES6.

@Cashews Xbox won’t be done. The ceo of Microsoft said his plan is to double Xbox’s revenue by 2030. That would put it at 32 Billion annually. It currently sit’s at 16.5 million a year now. To paint the picture a little further, Sony is at 24 Billion a year and Nintendo is at 12 billion a year. If Xbox is making 16 billion a year without any of its heavy hitters out. Plus growing PC GP and the ABK deal which could be huge yearly revenue. They will be just fine for a long time to come. 😊