Phil Spencer admits Starfield won’t make you sell your PS5

Xbox's first party lineup is thinning, and so far, most don't tink it's proving to be worth it. There has been a long-standing contest between Xbox and PlayStation regarding the games they can turn out with their own internal studios, and it was thought that Redfall could help to turn the tables against Sony.

Sadly, Microsoft has absolutely flubbed it and Xbox boss Phil Spencer has even apologised for the state of Redfall. The game is a mess, taking a lambasting from fans and critics alike, meaning hopes are slipping that Xbox can bring it back with Starfield. Even Spencer is lowballing a little.

Phil Spencer doesn't want to pull fans from its consoles

Asked if Xbox had lost focus in the console war (regardless of how you feel about its existence in 2023) as a result of its porting so many games to PC, Phil Spencer opened up about the gaming giant's intentions of pulling players away from its current console base. And it doesn't seem like he's particularly keen at all.

"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony, or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter," he says in conversation with the Kinda Funny Games podcast.

Admitting that Xbox "lost" the last-gen battle between PS4 and Xbox One, Spencer continued, "Most people, like 90 percent of the people every year who walk into a retailer to buy a console are already a member of one of the three ecosystems.

"Their digital library is there. This is the first generation where the big games that they're playing were games that were available last-gen (when you think about Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft)."

Phil Spencer suggests people won't migrate to Xbox for Starfield

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Spencer goes on to suggest that not even Starfield - the console's premier first-party title for now after the flop of Redfall - wouldn't be enough to drag players away from their beloved PS5s.

"I see a lot of pundits out there that kinda wanna go back to the time when we all had cartridges and discs and every new generation was a clean slate, and you could switch the whole console share," he says. "That's just not the world that we are in today."

Not exactly selling Starfield, Spencer concludes, "There is no world where Starfield's an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5s. That's not gonna happen." We're all for dampening the fires of the console wars, but you you should probably make your next AAA release sound like a threat.

Maybe this is something of an undersell, as many players actually bought new consoles in preparation for Fallout 4, but only time will tell if this comes to be true. If Starfield is as massive as it promises to be, it could still be the game-changer that Xbox needs.