According to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, part of the reason Microsoft bought Bethesda and its parent company ZeniMax Media was out of fear that Sony might make Starfield a timed PS5 exclusive.
Shortly before Microsoft acquired ZeniMax and Bethesda, Sony secured timed exclusivity for games like Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo. Those deals were honored even after the buyout went through, and it was a full year before either of those games came to Xbox, despite their developers becoming first-party Xbox studios. In the hearings over the Xbox Activision deal, Spencer confirmed that there were rumblings that the same thing might happen to Starfield.
