Starfield is Bethesda’s biggest launch ever with 6 million players on Xbox and Windows PC

Player count is soaring.

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What you need to know

What you need to know

It’s early days for Bethesda Game Studios' new science-fiction role-playing title, but things are off to a strong start.

Starfield already reached 6 million players the morning of Sep. 7, 2023, as shared by the game’s officialTwitteraccount. This comes not quite a full day after Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer shared thatStarfield had 1 million concurrent players, including a peak of over 250,000 players on Steam at once.

-Space and ship combat explained-Where to buy ship repair parts-How to rename ships-How to trade with ships

Bethesda Game Studios' last mainline single-player game, Fallout 4, released in 2015 and hit $750 million in revenue in its first day. Maligned at launch in 2018 over major bugs and other issues, the multiplayer-focused Fallout 76 received numerous updates and has reached over 11 million players as of 2021.

Starfield is the first title from Bethesda Game Studios as an Xbox first-party game, and as such launched day one in Xbox Game Pass, while also being exclusive to Xbox Series X|S consoles and Windows PC.

Looking ahead, Bethesda Game Studios is also currently working on acurrent-generation update for Fallout 4, though there is no date for when to expect the update outside of a 2023 release window.

Analysis: If you build it, they will come

Analysis: If you build it, they will come

-Skyrim has reached over 60 million copies sold-Avowed is coming to Xbox and PC in 2024-Fallout 76 is now 60 FPS on Xbox Series X|S and PS5

This is the biggest Xbox first-party launch in a while, so it’s great to see the work of the teams at Bethesda and Xbox rewarded. Much like Bethesda’s other games, I expect that the arrival of modding tools and Creation Club content will ensure Starfield lives on for quite some time.It’s also going to be interesting to see what affect this has on Xbox console sales, which have noticeably been outpaced by sales of the PlayStation 5 in 2023. One game alone won’t “turn the tide” no matter how big, and revenue in the Xbox business is healthy as-is, but I expect many more players are now interested in grabbing an Xbox Series X|S console.

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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.