The corporation will start with four games, but may increase this number in the future.
«I do have a fundamental belief that over the next five or ten years exclusive games, games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware, are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry», — said Microsoft’s head of games Phil Spencer on the Xbox podcast.
Microsoft has so far refused to disclose the names, but according to sources The Verge, familiar with the company’s plans, we are probably talking about Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded.
There were also rumors that Microsoft might launch Starfield and Indiana Jones on PS5, but Spencer excludes them from appearing in the list of the first four titles, although he considers this possibility in the future.
«I don’t think we as an industry should rule out the possibility of the game being available on any other platform at some point»,— says Spencer. «We’re focused on these four games for now, and we’re gaining experience. We are not working on other franchises».
So why would Microsoft launch Xbox exclusives on competitive platforms? The company says that it needs to develop the gaming business «to ensure the long-term success of both Xbox and the industry as a whole». Thanks to the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s gaming business has become larger than its Windows division, but the Xbox business as a whole still needs to grow. Sales of Microsoft’s Xbox Series S and X consoles are lagging behind Sony’s PlayStation 5, and Spencer has previously admitted that the flow of Xbox Game Pass subscriptions is slowing down. Thus, content revenue could be a good source of growth.