Head of Microsoft’s Xbox division Phil Spencer has said there are no Xbox exclusive games that have been ruled-out of a multi-platform release.
“I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not’,” Mr Spencer told Bloomberg, in reference to Xbox titles that may come to other platforms.
This is largely a continuation of a strategy Xbox outlined towards the beginning of 2024 in February, after it was announced Sea of Thieves, Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, and Grounded would be released on PlayStation 5.
Since then, Microsoft has stated previous key Xbox exclusive Indiana Jones and the Golden Circle will also come to PS5.
It’s out on Xbox Series consoles in December, ahead of a PlayStation 5 release reportedly planned for April 2025.
The key Xbox exclusive series are yet to be confirmed for a PlayStation release. These include Halo, Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport, Fable, and Bethesda’s Starfield.
Mr Spencer also intimated that Microsoft has plans for an Xbox handheld in the Bloomberg interview. He says the expectation is that “we would do something” in the handheld market. “Longer term, I love us building devices. And I think our team could do some real innovative work, but we want to be informed by learning and what’s happening now.”
There are already several current and upcoming precedents for such a handheld. The PlayStation Portal is a handheld that streams games played by a PlayStation 5. No official sales figures have been released, but Sony says it has been a success, supported by how long it spent out-of-stock around its release.
The Valve Steam Deck has a much more open approach. It’s a full PC, just not one that comes with Windows. And all eyes are on the Nintendo Switch 2, set to be revealed within just a few months, if not weeks. A handheld is a spectrum of things at this point.
A change or diversification of strategy has become more important for Xbox, which has soundly lost this generation, in console-war speak. The Xbox Series S and X combined have reportedly sold less than half the number of units the PlayStation 5 series has shifted.
An estimate from September 2024 pegged total Xbox Series sales at slightly under 30 million. It’s a lot, but not a lot for one of the big three consoles. The Xbox One sold around 58 million units, and was also considered something of a failure itself.
The significance of the lagging behind of Xbox is compounded by the decline in the idea a new console generation can act as a market reset, thanks in part to the extremely long tail of previous generation releases.
