The short-term future of Xbox implies that at least four Xbox exclusives will be released on PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch, Xbox leadership said Thursday on the Official Xbox Podcast.
Xbox CEO Phil Spencer declined to reveal the four titles, stating that the creators will do so themselves. According to The Verge, the games are Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment first, then Sea of Thieves and Grounded. Spencer stated that Starfield, Indiana Jones, and the Great Circle are not included in the four games.
However, Spencer predicts that the number of exclusive games will continue to decline over the next five to ten years.
“Today, big games like Roblox or Fortnite could be bigger than any one platform,” Xbox Games Studio president Matt Booty remarked. “And that changed the way we think about things.”
The debate about Xbox exclusivity exploded after speculations appeared in January that Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush would be multiplatform, followed by news that Sea of Thieves would be released on the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
When word broke that Microsoft’s 2023 blockbuster title Starfield and the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle were being considered for PlayStation 5, all bets were off. The “console war” mentality of the previous few decades has left video game gamers connected to their platform, and many Xbox owners were disturbed by the, at times too dramatic, conjecture about what would happen at Microsoft and Xbox.
The actuality of the news is not that unexpected. Microsoft has been releasing games on several platforms and consoles for years, such as Minecraft. For the past several years, the business has released the majority of its games on Windows PC in addition to Xbox platforms.
Including Activision Blizzard in its $68.7 billion deal is another step toward its multiplatform future: Call of Duty will remain available across all platforms, as indicated during the Federal Trade Commission hearings. Microsoft has made it clear that it wants its games to be accessible to as many gamers as possible.
“Our mission is to bring our first-party experiences [and] our subscription services to every screen that can play games,” Xbox Chief Financial Officer Tim Stuart stated in November. Xbox Game Pass is a major component of that ambition.
Of course, this does not imply that Xbox Game Pass will be available on other platforms; in fact, Microsoft stated if it will not. “We […] come back to some core principles,” Booty stated. “First, all of our games will be on the Xbox platform. Second, all of our titles will be available on Game Pass from day one. Third, we know that Game Pass will only be accessible on Xbox.”