Will Starfield Come On Disc? How Bethesda Messed Up On Communication

gameranx.com:

There seems to have been some miscommunication that happened in and out of Bethesda when it comes to the matter of Starfield being available on physical discs.

The mess started yesterday when Bethesda Support’s Twitter account, responding to an inquiry, claimed that all physical editions of Starfield will only come with codes for the specified platform. The account deliberately stated that there are no physical discs.

However, that tweet has been deleted, raising the whole issue into question.

As reported by Ovogaming, the Bethesda’s Spanish language Support account gave a different answer. According to them the special Collector’s Edition will only come with a code, but the Standard Edition of the game will have the game on disc.

Ovogaming also noted that physical game rental service GameFly has Starfield listed on their website. To put it simply, GameFly would not be able to commit to offering Starfield on their service if they were not able to provide a copy of the game at all.

While Bethesda is causing headaches for consumers with their mixed messaging, the reason this is an issue at all goes beyond Starfield.

We have been seeing the game platform companies shift their relationship to physical media. If the Xbox 360 would once carry a game that had to be played on five discs, today, the game’s publishers would be more inclined to sell games digitally, even if the game can fit in on a disc just fine.

The situation isn’t helped by the changed relation that game platforms have to physical media. If the PlayStation 2 once sold itself as a home entertainment platform thanks to its ability to play DVD movies as well as audio CDs, today such features are no longer effective selling points. Music, movies, TV shows have all