06 February 2024 , 18:00
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Phil Spencer says Xbox higher-ups are listening, explaining that rumours of the platform’s future will be addressed very soon.
Following rumours earlier this week that Xbox is planning to bring Starfield to PS5, head of Xbox Phil Spencer has finally come out to address them. A wide swathe of current console exclusives, from the upcoming Bethesda game Indiana Jones to Halo, have been heavily suggested to be arriving on PS5 and Nintendo Switch in some capacity soon, marking a huge potential shift in the platform holder’s release strategy. For the time being, however, it seems like we’ll have to wait a tad longer for further details regarding these plans.
“We’re listening and we hear you,” said Spencer in a post on his official Twitter account. This was in response to continued outcry from Xbox Series X|S owners sparked after XboxEra’s initial claims that Starfield will follow in the wake of Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush being ported to rival platforms. He then went on to say such concerns will be addressed during “a business update event for next week” – all but confirming some degree of legitimacy to what many people have heard.
It’s not just more recent Xbox games like Starfield and Hi-Fi Rush that have been heavily rumoured to be coming elsewhere either. Industry insider Jeff Grubb said in response on the Game Mess podcast (at the 14:42 mark) that he’d heard that Gears of War, forever an Xbox-only mainstay, is “definitely under consideration” to be brought to PlayStation and Nintendo devices. “Gears of War is being considered for this,” he went on to reiterate.
Up until now, the only other platform Xbox-published first-party games have been playable on is PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam. Said titles coming to platforms such as PS4 and PS5 have been unheard of, though there is some precedent for previous Xbox exclusives coming to Nintendo Switch later, in the case of both Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
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Xbox no more?
While Phil Spencer will seemingly be addressing the swirling rumours next week, then, it still calls the future of the Xbox platform into question. After all, if a console doesn’t have exclusive games, then what is the point of owning that console at all? Microsoft’s plan to push Xbox Game Pass over anything else might be coming home to roost, and now its new strategy could be to secure additional software sales on rival platforms.
It's no secret that during both the Xbox One, and now the Xbox Series X generation, first-party exclusives have been few and far between. Then, when they eventually do release, they’re either undercooked as was the case with Redfall or fall far short of player expectations as was the case with Starfield. That’s why I feel bad on behalf of everyone who’s invested solely in the Xbox ecosystem, as it means their purchase will objectively be of less value should the rumours be true.
We’ll know for sure what Xbox is planning when Phil Spencer lays his cards out on the table during the event next week. In the meantime, though, all anyone can do is speculate, but it’s clear that serious change appears to be on the horizon for all things Xbox.