Well, you said it in your second part, but I don't think BG3 will be GOY for those reason. I mean; I played the content available in the early access in its enirety and the issue with those games is that they are based on D&D (I'm play D&D tabletop everyweek, I like it but this is just not good in a videogames) :) Which can make the game very ackward to play for people that are not too much into that thing. The dice check, can be very frustrating too some time etc.. Limiting a videogames with whatever D&D rules has is not a good thing imo. BG1/2 were amazing because other RPGs were not offering much but now videogames RPGs like Starfield are providing WAY more things/options/capabilities.

For instance, I still believe (and that's my personal opinion :)) that Divinity Sins 2 is way more fun to play than BG3 (even if BG3 is based on a newest engine).

While Starfield will be like Skyrim/Fallout; I really believe it has way more chances to be GOY. :)

What do u think?

Edit: speaking of old school RPG, just installed Windows 3.11 in a VM to play this baby..
Let's Play... Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol Ep. 108 - YouTube :D (don't judge me :))

Oh for sure! I was referring to the fans of D&D and Baldur's Gate 1&2. Those fans have been waiting for Baldur's Gate 3 for what will have been 23 years by the time it releases, so for those fans, no game can touch BG3 lol. But, that is a very targeted crowd. I've tried getting into D&D before and......it is a LOT!!! It was too much for me lol especially since I didn't have a proper DM, and it was just a group of us trying to figure out how the hell to play the game which just adds more to the nicheness of BG3 and how it's not an actual threat to Starfield in terms of popularity and sales. 

I can see BG3 getting a nomination for GOTY, but not something that may actually win. But the fans that have waited decades for the game, it's gonna be their GOTY no matter what! 

Duuuuuuuude, that's super sick! Should get some Dune II action on that VM!

There's still the question of how the hell does MS plan to implement a mobile storefront when the 2 biggest mobile platforms have their stores locked? lol

I'm playing Dune 2 on Windows 11 actually, you can use Dune Legacy:

Dune Legacy (sourceforge.net)

And then you just need to copy the original file from the DOS game in and it will run on Windows (even with a new campaign and a new house).

Yeah, Baldur's gate 3 is definitely not a big threat to Starfield. Yes, Baldur's Gate 3 sold 2m+ on Steam Early Access so far, but lifetime it will probably be less than 6m on Steam. The last 2 Bethesda singleplayer RPG's, Skyrim and Fallout 4, sold more than that on Steam, as of the 2018 Steam data leak Skyrim was at 13m while Fallout 4 was at 6.6m, now in 2023 it is probably 15m+ for Skyrim and 9m+ for Falllout 4 I'd guess.

Meanwhile Larian games, like all isometric RPG's, sell considerably less on console than on PC. For instance Divinity Original Sin 1 seems to have sold somewhere between 1.5-2m copies on PC, compared to about 500k on PS4 and 250k on Xbox One based on old VGC physical data plus my own digital estimates. Bethesda RPG's on the other hand sell considerably more on console, Fallout 4 likely sold 10m+ on PS4 and 8m+ on Xbox One lifetime, while Skyrim seems to have sold 9m+ on 360, 6m+ on PS3, 6m+ on PS4/PS5, and 4m+ on Xbox One/Xbox Series, once again based on old VGC physical data plus my own digital estimates.

No matter what way you look at it, September is definitely a more strategic release window for Starfield than the previously rumored June window. June has 3 other AAA releases, 2 of them RPG's (Diablo 4 and FF16), and Diablo 4 and FF16 will both almost certainly be higher selling RPG's than Baldur's Gate 3 will be. By comparison, Starfield is currently the only AAA release scheduled for September. On top of that, Starfield releasing in September is more strategic for hardware sales, gives them 3 more months to fix the current production issues that are plaguing Xbox Series X but not PS5, as well as extra months to save up units for likely Starfield Series S and X standard bundles and limited edition custom consoles.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all if we hear that Baldur's Gate 3 has been delayed at some point before it's late August release. I know if I was in charge of release decisions at Larian, an indie studio without big marketing budgets, I wouldn't want to release Baldur's Gate 3 one week before Starfield. Starfield is big enough of an RPG to hack off Baldur's Gate 3's legs, badly hurting it's sales from the 2nd week onwards. If I was in charge of the release decisions at Larian, I'd push Baldur's Gate 3 into October to give Starfield a whole month of breadth. There are currently no other big RPG's scheduled for October-December 2023, unless something like Dragon Age 4 comes out of the left field, but while we originally heard that EA was targeting late 2023 for DA4, that was 2 years ago, a delay could easily have happened since then. The next Sword Art Online RPG is early October, while Namco Bandai MMORPG Blue Protocol and Disgaea 7 are TBA Q3/Q4, but none of those 3 would hurt Baldur's Gate 3 as they cater to a different genre of RPG fan, JRPG fans are often distinct from WRPG fans, while MMO fans are often distinct from singleplayer RPG fans. FF7R2 is scheduled for Winter 2023, but the term Winter 2023 could actually be used to describe Q1 2024 rather than Q4 2023, because of how fiscal years work, and besides, FF7R2 is exclusive to one of only 3 platforms that Baldur's Gate 3 will be on, PS5. They are definitely better off delaying by a month or two instead of going up against Starfield.

Finished Soul Hackers 2.

Pretty short game for an RPG. Managed to finish it in a little over 20 hours and that includes half the side quests (basically just fetch quests) and the good ending which requires beating a couple of extra floors in existing dungeons. Without that extra work, it'll probably take only 15 hours to beat the game.

Not much has changed from my initial impression. Story is crap, characters aren't that interesting, dialogues are too long and boring, dungeons are poorly designed, side quests are awful. On the plus side, there are of course tons of demons to choose from, the combat system is as good as you'd expect and the visuals are decent.

Definitely not worth a buy for anything over $10 IMO so in a way it's the perfect Game Pass game. Install, play, probably delete after a few hours, no money lost.

7/10

Sales are one thing (and sales will hurt thanks to gamepass for starfield on consoles) but critically I could see it go both ways. Divinity beat Fallout 4 metacritic wise.

Well Game Pass is certainly a factor but I'm pretty sure Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox vs Starfield on Xbox will come out as Starfield being the winner in sales, even with Game Pass, firstly because it's a Bethesda title so unless there's an extremely high attach rate on Game Pass, I don't think it will cannibalise Starfield's sales enough to cause BG3 to outsell it, especially because Larian/BG is niche on consoles.

Starfield will probably only have to do a few million on Xbox to outsell BG3 on Xbox, and they'll almost certainly have an "early access" premium release which I'll definitely be getting even having Game Pass. As for PlayStation...It doesn't really matter, Starfield isn't on PlayStation. PC...Starfield will be the winner, basically anywhere where Starfield is should outsell BG3.

Critically, I think Baldur's Gate 3 could beat Starfield...Not sure why Bethesda would care though, the consumers will flock to Starfield regardless. Like G2 said, Pentiment outscored most things last year but absolutely nobody will care about launching near it. Bethesda delayed Starfield for polish and likely doesn't give a single care about what game it launches near because they don't really need to unless it's CoD or a Rockstar title.

Diablo posed way more a threat than BG3 did but even then I think Starfield would have been fine.