Microsoft announce Xbox exclusives coming to PS5
Microsoft’s Xbox series of consoles has long ranked behind Sony’s PlayStation series. The PS5 outsold the Xbox Series X and Series S by nearly three times, with Sony shifting 22.5 million units to Microsoft’s 7.6 million.
Xbox has announced that four of their exclusive titles will be coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch in the coming months. Microsoft’s gaming division CEO, Phil Spencer, broke the news during a video podcast on Thursday. Spencer said that the strategy for Xbox going forward has changed and that this decision reflects that.
During the announcement, it was confirmed that the titles in question are all at least one year old, with two of them being live-service while the other two are relatively smaller titles. Fans speculate that one of the games will be the award-winning rhythm-based Hi-Fi Rush due to a datamined update that included support for the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller.
According to The Verge’s Tom Warren, Obsidian’s 2D role-playing game Penitent will be one of the first to hit rival platforms. The two live-service titles are expected to be Sea of Thieves and Grounded.
Phil Spencer stated that while Xbox’s strategy has shifted to focus on selling games over consoles, the company hasn’t decided to pull the plug on exclusives entirely. When asked about titles such as Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Spencer refused to outright confirm or deny whether either game will ever release on PS5, saying, “I don’t think we as an industry should
ever rule out a game going to any other platform. For anybody to stand up and say something’s never going to happen, I think it feels like creating more certainty in a world of gaming where you really want to respond to what customers want and what our players and creators are looking for.”
It’s been heavily rumoured that Xbox are considering bringing exclusive franchises such as Gears of War, Halo, and Forza to PlayStation and Switch. These first four titles to go multiplatform appear to be Microsoft’s attempt at testing the waters for the future.
Phil Spencer said: “We’re always looking to learn as a leadership team and to grow, and we think this is an interesting point in time for us to use what some of the other platforms have right now to help grow our franchises.”
Spencer also believes that taking the leap to multiplatform titles will help to futureproof Xbox’s sales.
He said: “I do have a fundamental belief that over the next five or ten years games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry.”
During an earnings call on Thursday, Sony chairman Hiroki Totoki seemingly agreed with Xbox’s new approach. Totoki stated that PlayStation was starting to proactively work on expanding its library of exclusives to other platforms and that, “First-party content can be grown with a multiplatform approach and that can help operating profit to improve.” This follows the launch of previously PlayStation only exclusive titles such as The Last of Us Part 1, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Death Stranding making their way to PC.
At the end of the update, Xbox President Sarah Bond teased the future of the console. Bond promised an exciting reveal this coming holiday season regarding the future of Xbox hardware, stating that the company is dedicated to delivering the “largest technical leap ever seen in a hardware generation.”