Pete Hines confirmed that Starfield was also initially planned on PS5as well as on PC and Xbox Series X|S, but also reported that the transition to the exclusivity regime has brought benefits to the development, reporting that the game he would never have been able to come out in September if it was supposed to have a PS5 version as well.
It is, also in this case, the advantage constituted by having to focus only on one console, which leads to a reduction in overall processing times and, possibly, even better optimization. “Focusing on fewer platforms has been a huge benefit to the team,” Hines explained, considering that going out on more platforms “It takes more time and also costs more. It’s a higher risk for me.”
According to a spokesperson for Bethesda, Starfield “couldn’t have arrived 9 weeks from now if we had to support a totally different platform”. These are essentially the same statements made previously by Naoki Yoshida of Square Enix when speaking of the advantages given by releasing Final Fantasy 16 only on PS5: the fact of being able to concentrate on a single platform entails an acceleration in development times and even better optimization.
In the same deposition during the FTC-Microsoft Activision acquisition trial, Hines reported that Starfield and Redfall were slated to release on PS5, prior to Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda.