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“Game Pass will only be available on Xbox”
“Game Pass will only be available on Xbox,” Xbox first-party chief Matt Booty says. It’s an interesting statement where in the past it felt like Microsoft would have wanted it on other platforms too. But that’s perhaps the key difference – on PlayStation, Sea of Thieves might cost £70. On Xbox, you get it in your subscription.
“Four games, no promise beyond that,” Spencer says of future Xbox games coming to PlayStation or Nintendo platforms. “If you’re on those other platforms and see these games coming, please don’t take it as some signal that everything’s coming – it’s not.”
Introducing Xbox exclusives on other platforms also adds to the “brand value” of Xbox, Spencer says.
Xbox exclusives going multiplatform “over a year old”
Spencer gives his reasoning for why Microsoft picked the first four games to go multiplatform. They’re all over a year old, he says. Two are “community driven” that will benefit from larger playerbases (that’s Sea of Thieves and Grounded). Two are smaller titles that are more creative and have realised their full potention on PC and Xbox (that’s Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment).
“I have a fundamental belief that over the next five to 10 years, exclusive games – games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware – are going to be a smaller and smaller piece of the games industry,” Spencer says, pointing to games launching on a mix of consoles and PC and mobile across the industry.
In the podcast, Spencer specifically names Starfield and Indiana Jones as games not going multiplatform – or at least, not yet.
Grounded, Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves going multiplatform – reports
Both The Verge and GameFile have now reported that these are the four games in question.
“I’m not going to name those games,” Spencer says when asked what the four games going multi-platform are. “Those teams have announcement plans that are not too far away.”
But as said below, the identities of these four games are now online.
“We make every decision with the long-term health in mind,” Spencer continues. “A growing platform, our games performing, building the best platform for creators, reaching as many players as we can.”
Spencer says it’s an “interesting time” to take advantage of those other platforms.
“We’ve made the decision that we’re going to take four games to the other consoles,” Spencer says. “Just four games, not a change to our fundamental exclusivity strategy.”
We’re listening to the Xbox podcast now. Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer dubs the exclusivity details as “unforeseen news”, as he was planning to focus at the beginning of this year on Activision Blizzard updates.
Xbox podcast now published
Microsoft has now published the Xbox business update podcast to YouTube. Hit refresh and you’ll see it now embedded above.
Those games will be Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded, The Verge reports.
Four Xbox games to go multiplatform – report
Well, it’s 8.02pm and we’re still awaiting Microsoft’s upload of the podcast to go live. In the meantime, The Verge is reporting that the podcast confirms four Xbox games will go multiplatform.
We’re approaching the top of the hour, so a last bit of background – why is all this happening now?
There’s a few things at play, but likely factors include Xbox hardware selling less than PlayStation, subscription service growth slowing across the board, and the recent purchase of Activision Blizzard. All of these add pressure on Xbox’s bottom line – something we’re also seeing, very sadly, in the recent decision to cull 1900 Xbox and Activision employees.
Lifeis2D (He/Him) says: I still can’t believe they’re choosing to do this as a PODCAST.
It is definitely unusual – but then this is an unusual and potentially tricky moment for Microsoft to message. It’s not something Xbox’s usual audience are necessarily going to celebrate, and it will likely benefit from context from Xbox top brass.
Whatever you think about it all, the fact Microsoft’s plans leaked into the public domain at all is remarkable – in that it was reported to be a result of discomfort from some staff within Xbox itself.
Last week, the suggestion that this strategy could potentially extend to high profile exclusives such as last year’s Starfield and this year’s Indiana Jones and the Great Circle sparked some pretty intense discussions on social media from people with emojis in their names.
Evening all, and welcome to our live coverage. As a reminder, Microsoft is set to publish tonight’s Xbox business update on YouTube and podcast platforms at 8pm UK time – we’ll also have it for you right here.
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