Strategic will be whenever Starfield is ready. Rushing it out to avoid other titles is a bad idea. Starfield does not need to avoid anything unless it's one of the biggest IPs in the industry like CoD or GTA. An early April won't mean much also if Series X stock is still terrible. Who cares what Jim Ryan thinks, Lol.

Starfield IS the heavy hitter for September, so far there are no other heavy hitters announced for September and with Starfield firmly planting its flag before anyone else, most developers will try to avoid that date now. You're acting like Starfield is a new IP from a random developer, I'll once again say that it feels like some have forgotten how huge Bethesda launches are.

Look at Sep 2022 and the heavy hitters were Last of Us Remake, Splatoon 3, NBA 2K23 and Fifa 23 at the very end of the month. I don't think Starfield has to worry about sports titles, couldn't be any different in terms of genre and an entirely different audience. What I meant by "PlayStation doesn't matter" is that Starfield isn't on PlayStation so BG3 can't possibly take away any sales from Starfield on PS, Lol.

Why are you only talking physical sales? I think Bethesda reports digital for UK charts? I'd be shocked if Starfield's sales in UK on Xbox (physical and digital included) are less than BG3's sales in UK on PS unless a massive amount play it via Game Pass only which would be a big win for Xbox either way, Lol.

It honestly feels like BG3 is just being used in the "console wars" and causing some to forget that BG3 is a niche title, that Larian titles are niche on Consoles, that BG1/2 aren't even on Consoles and 2 Enhanced Edition doesn't even have sale numbers reported. That Sony themselves aren't even treating it as an exclusive, nowhere did Sony state it was exclusive, Sony is not marketing this title, it just showed up in a State of Play.

The developers themselves are saying that nowhere did they say the Xbox version is delayed, both are in development alongside each other, there is an issue which may very likely be fixed before launch (there is still around 6 months left) and all this drama will look really silly if in the end BG3 launches on Xbox on the same date as PlayStation.

BG3 scoring higher than Starfield is completely irrelevant to Xbox/Bethesda because at the end of the day, Starfield will likely crush it in sales and have a larger consumer fanbase. They don't really need to be compared, they shouldn't be compared honestly, Larian has been dragged into the console wars and I feel a little bad for them. Ultimately at the end of the day, Baldur's Gate 3 is not a threat to Starfield at all.

Agreed I'm glad it's in a separate showcase. I don't really think Starfield's date means much for other Xbox IPs. They'll release when they're ready, Microsoft doesn't seem to care about that stuff, they released Halo Infinite/Forza Horizon 5 a week apart and they just released Hi-Fi Rush, Age 2 on Xbox and Goldeneye 007 HD in the same week or near enough, Lol.

They'd get away with releasing something in late Sep if they have anything ready or a shorter title in August.

1) It is not about rusthing but about being efficient, having not only Quality and Quantity in a certain time frame.

2) Considering you mentioned him the most in this thread you seem to care.

3) What do you want me to say?  Halo was also huge....    The past doens't mean a lot. Just like fanbases of the past doesn't mean a lot.  Devs weren't really scared of last year starfield release date, Sony planted GoW release date right next to it.

Don't need to compare with BG3 but it will have an impact, and more games for september will be announced. 

Those 2 games are not coming to the Xbox system, at least at launch so if you are confident in your property why would you not release your biggest hitter against these 2 games.  Its not like there will be any competition on the Xbox and PC.

FF16 is never coming to Xbox so don’t worry about that one.

Not sure if that is going to actually be the determination for Starfield success.  For MS, Starfield success is not how much it sell in retail but how many subs it gets to GP.  Every AAA first party game that comes from MS from now success is measured in Subs not retail success.  So lets say that BG out sell Starfield in retail but MS gains 5 million subs based on Starfield.  In MS eyes, Starfield would be a huge success.

1. Agreed they need both, still doesn't change the fact that rushing out Starfield for early April is a bad strategic decision, if it's date is September then what makes you think it will be ready for April? Lol. These are just the facts of the situation and there's no amount of blind hope that can suddenly make Starfield a possible April release.

2. Okay, I care when he says dumb shit in relation to a deal which could have huge beneficial impacts to me as an Xbox consumer.

I don't care about his opinion on Starfield's delay.

3. Halo Infinite had a huge launch, Lol. For the 50th time, it died because of its post launch support not being good enough for a live service Multiplayer title.

The past means a lot because it allows us to make educated guesses based on past trends rather than blind guesses based on nothing. We can see that Oblivion sold great, Skyrim sold absolutely amazing, Fallout 4 sold great, Bethesda titles more often than not sell great. While Larian's titles are usually niche. Tbh, I'd not be surprised if Fallout 4 alone outsold the majority of Larian's output combined.

God of War Ragnarok's date was announced after Starfield's delay but even then I don't think they'd have cared much because they are exclusive to a certain platform, I'm talking about heavy hitting 3rd parties moving away from Starfield so that they don't lose sales on Xbox or PC. Why would Sony or Microsoft care about that? Starfield can't lose sales on PlayStation to Ragnarok and Ragnarok can't lose sales on Xbox to Starfield because they don't exist on those platforms.

BG3 will not have an impact, at least not one which is worth mentioning.

I'll say again, the only reason BG3 is being compared to Starfield in this way is because people are wrapped up in console wars and BG3 may or may not be PlayStation exclusive, ignoring the fact that even PlayStation themselves aren't marketing it as one or marketing it at all aside from the State of Play inclusion.