Starfield is the talking point of every gaming community. None of them can wait for the game to be released. A few players who got the review copies said it is a masterpiece. This has led to creating more hype surrounding the game. Starfield is set to hit the market on 6 September 2023.
But even among such great news for Bethesda Game Studios, they are still haunted by a past mistake. Not only Bethesda but Microsoft and Xbox also suffered from that. A few months back, Bethesda launched a game that was said to take the market by storm, but instead, it was like a hurricane on the company’s financial status.
Starfield‘s Predecessor Cost Microsoft $7.5 Billion
Redfall was released on 1 May 2023. It was developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Game Studios. Unreal Engine was the game’s Engine. It was thought to make the path for Bethesda’s next release – Starfield. But instead, the game performed horribly and was criticized by the gaming community. It was a multiplayer video game with a lousy design, gameplay, story, and technical problems.
Before Redfall’s release, Microsoft bought Arkane Studios, making the game an Xbox exclusive. The deal cost Microsoft $7.5 Billion, which turned out to be a loss. Even though Redfall was made with a much lower budget, Microsoft did not make any profits. Instead, this deal was deemed as a loss. Redfall has a score of 5 out of 10 on Steam, which narrates Microsoft’s feelings.
Redfall performance was so poor that SteamDB showed that the game has only 20 daily active players. The game set a personal record when the number increased to 38. Overall, this is not a number that any game producer or developer would want to see. Redfall made people lose confidence in the producers and developers.
Xbox Head on Redfall’s Poor Performance
Due to Redfall’s failure in the market, Xbox Head Phil Spencer took full responsibility. During an interview, he apologized to the Xbox community that Redfall could not deliver. The Xbox team never intended to disappoint the fans; they try their best every time. Spencer went on to say that he was upset with himself as he was a part of the Redfall team.
Phil Spencer has family members and friends who give him feedback on every new release. Xbox also does mock reviews to make sure the best is produced. If statistics of the last few years were taken into account, it would be seen that almost every game had a good score. Phil Spencer never thought that Redfall would fail so miserably in the market. It was on him and his whole team.
For the moment, Microsoft is busy with Starfield. Every ounce of their energy is being given to Starfield to make sure it does not follow the path of Redfall. They need to be careful. In just three months, Microsoft and Bethesda are back with another hyped video game, after their disaster with Redfall. Only time will tell what kind of history Starfield will write.
Source: YouTube
