Phil Spencer: The decision to delay Starfield was "just the right thing to do"

The original plan was that Starfield should have been released on November 11, which means we could have been knee-deep in galactic adventures right now, exploring the biggest game Bethesda has ever created.

Unfortunately, the game was delayed in May, and is now confirmed to be released during the first half of 2023 on a yet to be disclosed date. Of course, this was a blow for Xbox which lost it's by far biggest draw for both the important holidays and the entire year. But the Xbox boss Phil Spencer stands by the decision to delay the game in an interview over at The Verge.

He says Microsoft have launched games prematurely before, and says the team really put their soul into Starfield, so delaying it was the right decision:

"We have experience shipping games too early. But in hindsight, when you look at a game like Starfield - which has taken so long and so much investment in new IP from the team - the decision to give the team the time to build the game that they feel they should be building is just the right thing to do."

Spencer also adds that Starfield is Bethesda's first new game as a Microsoft studio, and he wants the developers to know that they have Microsoft's full support:

"Starfield and Redfall, which are our first big Xbox games with [Bethesda owner] ZeniMax coming into the team, I just wanted to make sure those teams felt they had the support they could get from Xbox. Maybe feel some of the benefit of being part of a larger organization that has other revenue streams and other things going on that could be helpful."

Do you agree, was a major delay the right way to go?