As part of a new What’s Next For Gaming at Microsoft event that included a nice little sit-down with Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, the Xbox chief highlighted Starfield as the crown jewel of sorts of the recent ZeniMax/Bethesda acquisition. “This will be a hallmark for us in terms of the acquisition of ZeniMax,” Phil says. “Getting to work with Todd Howard, and bringing this game to market. I've seen a lot of this game, and people are going to see more of it. I love setting the goal of ‘let's get more players for this game than any other game’.”

Of course the recent delay of Starfield into the first-half of 2023 means it won’t be the big holiday game for Xbox this year, but it’s going to be one of the biggest Xbox releases to date when it does finally drop. It’s the next game from the studio behind Skyrim and Fallout 4, is a brand-new IP, and has been in development in one form or another since 2015.

This is not to say that Xbox is all-in and nothing else when it comes to Starfield, but that it sees the game as something potentially huge. A hallmark release (thanks Phil). This sits alongside the much talked about long-term plan for Xbox, which is to bring the platform to more people than ever - no matter if they own a console or dedicated gaming PC. Which means, yeah, you’ll be able to play Starfield on a phone or Smart TV.

“When I think about the platform that we're building, we're building a platform that can reach billions of players,” Phil adds. “Whether it's on console, whether it's on PC, whether it's through Xbox cloud streaming where players on any device they want to play on should be able to find the content that they want to play. Whether it's in a web browser, whether it's in an app, or whether it's on a device that's dedicated to playing games. That's just fundamental to where Xbox is going, find as many players as we can, and cultivate a community of amazing creators.”

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All The Xbox Pre-Showcase News

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Xbox App is Coming to Samsung’s 2022 Smart TVs
Xbox is Getting New Features Designed for Windows 11 and Microsoft Edge
Xbox Game Pass is Getting Demos and the Ability to Cloud Stream Games Outside of its Library
Xbox Design Lab is Coming to Australia… And in New and Improved Form
Phil Spencer Sees Starfield as the Hallmark Release to Come Out of the Bethesda Acquisition