Priority in a pipeline is orientated around opportunity cost, the reward of actually taking on a task.

There are probably 100 of things that will be ahead of a unstable 60fps mode. And again, you're not talking about a reliable 60fps mode, you're talking about a mode which at least hits 45fps for VRR users which is simply not valuable for the vast majority of Xbox gamers who do not have a VRR display. Such a mode will be at the bottom of the bucket list for a game like Starfield which in terms of testing will be magnitudes higher than probably all of the games you're seeing launch with performance modes. 

And I feel like people are throwing around "open world" comparisons a lot recently as if they're all made the same. Simply having a sandbox does not make a game incredibly complex. Beyond loading environments, A game like Horizon or Spiderman (for example) is probably closer to a single player title like TLOU compared to something like Starfield. They're not games where half the objects you come across have a physics component, can be picked up, stored, utililised, with 1000s of NPCs and their dynamic impact on the environment &  story being managed in real time. Its really apples and oranges. I won't give Bethesda a pass for launching games in a buggy state, but I also think people are doing the kind of games they make a disservice by comparing them to otherwise linear sandbox games or last gen/cross gen titles.

Opportunity cost is the cost associated with performing that task rather than another task, not "the reward of actually taking on a task." This is why I mentioned that pipelining in software development (including game development) can work to reduce the effective total time lost -- aka opportunity cost. Think of it like pipelining in a CPU. If you aren't using the resources for something else because there is latency from another resource finishing up its step in the process (such as developing the content to be QA'd), then that resource could do a different thing (such as QA different performance configs in already produced content.) 

See: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/risc/pipelining/index.html

Given that Starfield's development team will likely be doing a lot of the necessary work to make performance modes already (on PC's of comparable specs to the Series X and S) a lot of the work that needs to be done is already being done for other purposes anyway. It's not as if Starfield is an Xbox exclusive and not already running on other performance-tiers.I don't know where you got the idea that creating a performance profile is some long arduous task with a significant marginal cost, but that isn't true at all. The PC version will have consumers optimizing it within a week on a multitude of platforms to hit different targets. Pick the best config that works well on comparable hardware to the Series X and S, then use maybe a bit more time to actually test it on a dev-kit, likely will get better results than those PC players got because of the closed-platform, and then there you go. Yes, it will likely take months for every person in the pipeline to get their part done, but not months worth of dedicated full-time effort on the part of everyone involved. It would be something one would work on while one is waiting for other more critical things.  

As to your second point, much of the interactivity we've seen so far in Starfield isn't much of a massive improvement over what we've seen in past Bethesda games. But even if it were, we've seen games with a high degree of interactivity and open-worlds that have multiple performance modes, and have had a long list of performance updates. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077 are very notable examples, where interactivity is on-par if not in excessive of most Bethesda games. If you want to make your point stronger, it'd help if you were more specific about what in Starfield you think would add complexity to the addition of a performance mode and the actual technical reasons for it. 

Right, and when I mention that their will be way more aforementioned tasks that is exactly what I'm talking about.

"There are probably 100 of things that will be ahead of a unstable 60fps mode"

Testing a VRR mode on Xbox will be take time from things considered higher priority given the low reward of said mode. Critical bug/performance fixes and optimisation which is given at launch, followed by probably a haste to create & test further content. I don't see it being high in their pipeline. If you were talking about a mode relevant to more than 1% of Xbx user's, this could be different. 

Cyperpunk literally sunk CD Project red's stock price for a whole year. Simply offering performances patches is not the goal, especially if said patches get bad responses & there is no way to alter it on the player side, which is one of the reasons why console profiling & testing on the console side is way more dedicated then on PC. Cyperpunk is also like a  30hour game experience. You cannot build your own in-game forts, mass collect trickers/items that accomulate in a persistent environment, have those items be stolen & taken by NPCs, alter gravity, interact with a wider & dynamic ecosystem.

RD redemption is a last gen game, launched in 2018. When did it receive a performance mode on console? If we're taking about 4k modes on PS4 Pro & X1X, updating & supporting to 4k was massively more important from a consumer & marteking perspective than a VRR mode & also likely less CPU bound. Anytime your addressing a CPU limitation you're typically looking at more critical impacts on the game which require more testing.

You original statement was:

"Any additional performance modes probably take months of testing particularly for a game of this scale. They're not going to spend 1000s of man hours on a performance mode that will be shat on in gaming media for being unplayable, with the only saving grace being that the 1% of Xbox Series Owners with VRR displays can benefit. Especially considering the type of game it is, post launch content & bug fixing will be priority over a 60fps mode."

1. It won't take 1000s of man-hours. I'd be surprised if it took 100 man-hours. Why? Because A. They've already likely been doing continuous performance tests. That is part of game development. They know what likely has to change to get a 45 fps minimum. That reduces the number of iterations between development staff and testers. B. It really doesn't take 1000's of hours to change and test config settings, even if they didn't already have some active performance testing in place already. 

2. Post launch bug-fixing definitely would be something a QA team would be involved with, but post-launch content takes time to develop, and it could be months before a QA team even sees that content. There definitely will be times, as there is in any software development, where the QA team have more capacity to take on small tasks -- like adding a performance mode, while they wait for the development team to develop new content to test. 

Imagine if CD Project didn't improve performance and the game remained unplayable on many SKU's until this day. Yes, their short-term profitability might've been better in that scenario, but their credibility as developers would be trashed. I don't know what you're referring to with "bad responses" here. The game released to a "bad response" and was improved over time. 

Being a "30 hour game experience" really tells us nothing about how hard it is it make different performance configs. Cyberpunk 2077, unlike Starfield, pushed graphics in a way that made finding a config more difficult (leaning on ray-tracing which many platforms don't quite support well), not less.

As for the other interactivity situations you describe, all of these would've been tested (if Bethesda is doing its due-diligence) in the development of the game, as the game isn't just targeting one platform. They should already have a good idea how the game scales with different hardware and what it would take to achieve 45-60 fps. 

Not an official patch, but one developed by a single modder. 

https://screenrant.com/red-dead-redemption-2-mod-ps4-pro-4k/

"As reported by Ben T. on Twitter, modder illusion0001 has managed to push Red Dead Redemption 2 beyond its limits on the PlayStation 4 Pro, allowing the title to smoothly run around 60 frames per second and in native 4K. Ben claims that the unofficial patch unlocks the frame rate for the PlayStation Pro version, but due to the console having a weak CPU the frames hang in the 50s range and can't keep a steady 60. Additionally, another patch by the modder boosts the resolution beyond 1080p and allows native 4K with the exclusion of blurry textures."

Which substantiates the point that this isn't something that takes 1000's of man-hours.

You original statement was:

"Any additional performance modes probably take months of testing particularly for a game of this scale. They're not going to spend 1000s of man hours on a performance mode that will be shat on in gaming media for being unplayable, with the only saving grace being that the 1% of Xbox Series Owners with VRR displays can benefit. Especially considering the type of game it is, post launch content & bug fixing will be priority over a 60fps mode."

1. It won't take 1000s of man-hours. I'd be surprised if it took 100 man-hours. Why? Because A. They've already likely been doing continuous performance tests. That is part of game development. They know what likely has to change to get a 45 fps minimum. That reduces the number of iterations between development staff and testers. B. It really doesn't take 1000's of hours to change and test config settings, even if they didn't already have some active performance testing in place already. 

2. Post launch bug-fixing definitely would be something a QA team would be involved with, but post-launch content takes time to develop, and it could be months before a QA team even sees that content. There definitely will be times, as there is in any software development, where the QA team have more capacity to take on small tasks -- like adding a performance mode, while they wait for the development team to develop new content to test. 

Imagine if CD Project didn't improve performance and the game remained unplayable on many SKU's until this day. Yes, their short-term profitability might've been better in that scenario, but their credibility as developers would be trashed. I don't know what you're referring to with "bad responses" here. The game released to a "bad response" and was improved over time. 

Being a "30 hour game experience" really tells us nothing about how hard it is it make different performance configs. Cyberpunk 2077, unlike Starfield, pushed graphics in a way that made finding a config more difficult (leaning on ray-tracing which many platforms don't quite support well), not less.

As for the other interactivity situations you describe, all of these would've been tested (if Bethesda is doing its due-diligence) in the development of the game, as the game isn't just targeting one platform. They should already have a good idea how the game scales with different hardware and what it would take to achieve 45-60 fps. 

Not an official patch, but one developed by a single modder. 

https://screenrant.com/red-dead-redemption-2-mod-ps4-pro-4k/

"As reported by Ben T. on Twitter, modder illusion0001 has managed to push Red Dead Redemption 2 beyond its limits on the PlayStation 4 Pro, allowing the title to smoothly run around 60 frames per second and in native 4K. Ben claims that the unofficial patch unlocks the frame rate for the PlayStation Pro version, but due to the console having a weak CPU the frames hang in the 50s range and can't keep a steady 60. Additionally, another patch by the modder boosts the resolution beyond 1080p and allows native 4K with the exclusion of blurry textures."

Which substantiates the point that this isn't something that takes 1000's of man-hours.

 Listening to their QA team for once might.