Microsoft has officially stated that Xbox exclusives will make their way to the PlayStation and Nintendo platforms soon.
According to CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer, the company has made the decision to evaluate its cross-platform publishing chops with four titles that aim at community-driven and indie audiences.
We’ve made the decision that we’re going to take four games to the other consoles.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer
While Spencer remains cagey on exactly which exclusive titles the company is willing to part with, The Verge is reporting that sources familiar with the new strategy says the company has earmarked four titles that could start with open-world pirating adventure game Sea of Thieves, and rhythm based Hi-Fi Rush.
There have been rumors and reporting that Microsoft’s four-game cross-platform release this year is just a testing bed for a much larger and more ambitious push to bring more of its titles to other platforms such as Starfield to PlayStation and an upcoming Indiana Jones game from Bethesda.
When asked by The Verge on the possibility of more multiplatform games making their way to rivial devices, Spencer hints at Activision Blizzards standing as multiplat publisher status currently and that Microsoft is looking to continue to sheppard that spirit.
Yeah, but we haven’t seen that yet. We’re obviously one of the biggest publishers on PlayStation and Nintendo today, when you think about the Activision Blizzard and Bethesda lineup of games. So we know what it means to ship games on Steam, PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer
These are games that originally launched on Xbox. They were Xbox-branded games and we want to see what happens, because going and doing the development work to bring them to new platforms is real work. We want to make sure that the return makes sense. We want to make sure the audience that’s there has an appetite, maybe they don’t.
While outlining the new publishing strategy during his time on the Xbox podcast, Spencer references a near future where gaming exclusivity becomes a smaller factor in console gaming.
I do have a fundamental belief that over the next five or ten years exclusive games, games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware, are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer
With Microsoft’s pivot to large scale gaming publisher, acquiring Activision Blizzard allows Spencer to claim his division is “the number one consumer business” that the company has.
Xbox president Sarah Bond buffered today’s multi-platform announcement with the tease of new Xbox hardware that is most likely the upgraded Xbox Series X and S that was revealed in documents during the company’s injunction trial with the Federal Trade Commission last year.
“There’s some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we’re going to share this holiday, and we’re also invested in the next-generation road map. What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap that you will have ever seen in a hardware generation.”
Spencer acknowledges the fanboy complaints and fears when discussing the new Xbox strategy and simply states that “the industry just doesn’t really work that way today,” and with this new multiplatform publishing push, Microsoft Gaming is looking to clarify the reality behind gaming where every screen could and should be capable of gaming at any time.
