Historically, exclusive game releases have been a powerful weapon in the console war: Customers are more apt to buy a certain piece of hardware if that's the only way they can get the particular games they want to play. In an interview with Polygon, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said Microsoft is now leaning away from that strategy, to the point that he's even open to the idea of having digital storefronts like the Epic Games Store and Itch.io on Xbox consoles.
It was a big deal earlier this year when rumors that Microsoft was planning to bring Xbox-exclusive games to PlayStation first began to surface. It ultimately proved to be true, although only a small number of games—and none of the big ones—are currently set to make the move. But it really seemed to set the tone for the future: In a podcast confirming the Xbox-to-PlayStation pipeline, Spencer said that over the next five to 10 years, console-exclusive games "are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the games industry."
