Xbox fans against the organisation’s multiformat strategy may want to close their eyes now, as boss Sarah Bond is signalling her company has no plans to explore exclusivity again.
In an interview with Mashable, she pointed out that all of the biggest games in the world are available everywhere, and the concept of exclusivity is becoming “antiquated”.
She said:
“The biggest games in the world are available everywhere. You look at Call of Duty, Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox – that’s really what’s driving community in gaming. That’s where people gather and have experience, so the idea of locking it to one store or one device is antiquated for most people. You want to be able to play with your friends anywhere regardless of what device they’re on.”
Despite being asked about “blockbuster exclusive games”, Bond’s response seems to lean into live service titles, which is hard to argue with.
We’ve obviously just seen how Sony has brought Helldivers 2 to Xbox Series X|S after its breakout success on PS5 and PC last year, so clearly the PlayStation maker is somewhat on the same page.
But we’ve also just observed Ghost of Yotei climb close to the top of the US sales charts as a PS5-only release, and we suspect Nintendo may have a thing or two to say about Bond’s comments as well.
Indeed, exclusives still have a role to play when it comes to moving hardware.
In fact, we suspect Microsoft itself may agree with that point, as while its upcoming Forza Horizon 6 has been confirmed for Sony’s system already, it’ll launch after the Xbox and PC versions – presumably because the Redmond firm believes it can move a few units of its own format first.
To be honest, we don’t overall disagree with what Bond’s saying here, but Microsoft as a whole appears to be moving away from hardware, so what else is she going to say?
This certainly wasn’t the company’s outlook just a couple of years ago when it famously cancelled the PS5 version of Starfield, after all.