We had just reported on Bethesda revealing that Starfield was their most successful launch ever. But, it turns out this launch also set another record.
As revealed by Video Games Chronicle, their six million player count also makes Starfield the most successful game published by Xbox Game Studios.
Video Games Chronicle explains that the previous biggest launch Xbox Game Studios has on record was Forza Horizon 5. The latest Forza game to release prior to this year’s Forza Motorsport, Forza Horizon 5 released on PCs, Xbox Series X|S, and on Xbox One, as the franchise’s swan song for that console. Its cross generation release netted it 4.5 million players across console, PC, and also the cloud.
Now, it is notable that Microsoft did not announce player numbers for other games that have reached this amount or higher. If there is another record holder for most successful launch under the Xbox Game Studios banner, Microsoft has not seen it fit to share it with the public.
And, obviously, it’s highly unlikely for any company to not reveal that one or a few of their games had the publisher’s most successful launches, but it isn’t entirely impossible. It’s also possible there’s human error here and there are other games with successful releases that Video Games Chronicles just missed. At the very least, it was worth pointing out that there could be other games.
Assuming that Xbox Games Studios had no other such launches, Starfield represents a new landmark for the publisher as well. Microsoft bet a lot on Starfield to have kept fans hyped up for the release for a significant period of time when they didn’t have many other major releases on the pipeline. They famously made the same bet on Redfall, and that was one that didn’t pay off.
Forza Horizon 5 has another significant record, having surpassed 10 million players in its first week. This has been dubbed the biggest first week in Xbox history. While Starfield already stands to be a huge success, it would be interesting to see if it can break Forza Horizon 5’s record for the week as well.
We may see Microsoft confirm that Starfield had these achievements later as well. It is more likely they’ll reserve those announcements when they have more solid numbers, so we may have to wait for another financial meeting for such confirmation. But ultimately, more important than rounding off numbers, is Bethesda Game Studios making a game that made the fans happy.
