Starfield is hitting like an asteroid and the player numbers reflect that -- or so it seems. Because Xbox boss Phil Spencer is publicly gloating about around 1 million concurrent players at the moment.
What's it all about? On social media, Xbox boss Phil Spencer announced an hour ago that Starfield is selling terrifically and currently has around 1 million concurrent players on all platforms. But on PC in particular, a statistic shows that this number has a catch.
Pre-orders of the Premium Edition of Starfield were already able to fly (or fast travel) into their space adventure on 01 September. At the start of the Early Access phase, around 234,000 concurrent players had already launched the game. Now a week later, Starfield is being released to all other potential customers. But there is little change in the concurrent player numbers.
At around 269,000 concurrent players, the number of these has only grown by a meager 7% compared to Early Access. Let's compare that to the current biggest market competitor Baldur's Gate 3, whose Early Access phase lasted for several years. BG3 was playable for a long time, but the number of players multiplied at launch.
Worth Reading: Starfield: Interactive Map with Star System
What could be the reason for this? Many players want to return Starfield. This is evident from the Google Trends from September 03, in which the search query: "Starfield Refund" was among the top queries. Also on reddit many declare that they would have returned the game. Among other things, the Xbox Gamepass is probably responsible for the lower player numbers on Steam. After all, Starfield is free of charge here -- except for the basic subscription. However, a look at the total player numbers for all platforms reveals that at least the sales figures are doing well (via activeplayers.io):
Players on Steam (via SteamDB)
Only in the coming days to weeks will we see how much Starfield can captivate its player base. If there is a massive drop, it indicates that there is interest in the game. But it also indicates that Starfield is not that good in the end.
