After weeks of rumours, Microsoft has announced concrete details of its plans to bring Xbox exclusives to the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
It has now confirmed all four of the titles involved and the all-important dates owners of the consoles can put in their diary.
Pentiment is the first Xbox Game Studios exclusive to see a release, and it’s out today, February 22. It will be available for Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PlayStation 5.
Next up is Hi-Fi Rush, due on PlayStation 5 – but not the Switch – from March 19. This is a more visually taxing game that Pentiment, and it is no great surprise a Switch port has not been produced.
Obsidian Entertainment’s Grounded will come to Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PlayStation 5 on April 16. Xbox has confirmed cross-play between all platforms will be possible too.
Finally, multi-player seafaring piracy title Sea of Thieves will come to PlayStation 5 on April 30. Again, cross-play between PC, PlayStation and Xbox players will be available.
All four are excellent games.
Which Xbox games are coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch?
Pentiment
Pentiment is a highly stylised role-playing title in which the player has to unravel a series of mysterious murders, set in 16th Century Bavaria across multiple decades.
Hi-Fi Rush
Hi-Fi Rush is a cartoony rhythm-influenced action game where you fight against an evil robotics corporation.
Grounded
Grounded is a few years old now, released in 2020, and is an action adventure game with thematic links to family favourite movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Players are shrunk down to ant-size proportions, and have to survive.
Sea of Thieves
Sea of Thieves may well prove to be the most popular of the lot on PlayStation 5. It’s a multiplayer title where players can team-up to become a pirate crew. This one has improved massively since its original release in 2018, but is now highly regarded.
What’s happening with Xbox exclusives?
This new marks a final firming-up of a story that has rumbled on since the beginning of 2024.
After rumours began circulating that Xbox exclusives would come to other platforms in early January, Xbox head Phil Spencer announced future plans would be discussed on a podcast.
This podcast was released on February 15, and stated Microsoft would release four Xbox games on other platforms.
The games, and their release dates, were not announced. However, it was specified Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, in production at Microsoft-owned Bethesda subsidiary MachineGames, were not among them.
The wording of the podcast was vague enough to let Microsoft do what it wants in future in terms of bringing exclusives to other platforms, without being accused of U-turns, though.
These freed-up exclusives are an experiment, but could well become a part of core Xbox strategy going forwards.
