Starfield has seen “lukewarm” sales on PlayStation 5, according to one analyst, who is now questioning Microsoft’s strategy of releasing its games on PS5 after they’ve already come out on Xbox and PC.
According to Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics, Starfield had sold 140,000 copies on PS5 as of a week after launch. Bethesda has yet to announce a sales figure for Starfield on PS5, or generally for that matter. The last we heard, in November 2024, Starfield had seen over 15 million players across all platforms.
“While these would be decent numbers for many ports, it’s not fantastic for a port of the biggest Bethesda RPG in a decade (although launch-aligned, it’s selling faster than other Xbox games that came to Xbox in the past six months, minus CoD),” Elliott said.
“Still, Starfield’s lukewarm PS5 sales obviously raise questions about the long-term viability of Xbox’s delayed multiplatform releases (Starfield came to PS5 2.5 years after Xbox/Steam).”
For context, Playground’s Forza Horizon 5 has sold an estimated 5.7 million copies on PS5, which, according to Alinea Analytics, has generated $320 million in revenue. Forza Horizon 5 launched on PlayStation in April 2025, three-and-a-half years after Xbox.
According to Alinea Analytics’ data, Starfield has sold an additional 55,000 copies on Steam as a result of the launch of the Free Lanes update, which went live alongside the PS5 version. That amounts to $2.3 million of revenue, reportedly pushing Starfield’s total Steam revenue past the $200 million mark (a figure that includes an estimate of 3.7 million copies sold on Steam before the DLC drop).
Of course, that doesn’t paint the whole picture of Starfield’s commercial performance. The Bethesda sci-fi RPG also launched on Xbox and, as a Microsoft-owned title, straight into Game Pass. Elliott said the Xbox version of Starfield had sold over 1 million copies despite Game Pass “cannibalizing sales.”
Elliott estimates that Starfield has brought in over $300 million in revenue across all platforms since launch, a figure he said probably isn’t good enough for a high-profile Bethesda game. “In the context of a Bethesda budget and a decade-long development cycle, Starfield has likely barely broken even,” he said, adding that the recently released Crimson Desert is on track to overtake Starfield’s lifetime copies sold by the end of 2026. Crimson Desert has sold 5 million copies so far.
“Ironically, this wouldn’t be true if Starfield had launched day-and-date on PS5 and had not been on Game Pass on Xbox and PC,” he added.
Microsoft tends to launch its games on PS5 at the same time as Xbox and PC these days, but there are exceptions. Playground’s Forza Horizon 6, for example, launches on Xbox and PC in May, but on PS5 at some point later this year.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
