As we tipped yesterday Sony’s arch-rival Microsoft is now going after revenue from PlayStation and Nintendo console users, while also trying to lure their console users to Xbox, with the announcement overnight that the big Xbox software Company will make four exclusive Xbox games available for Sony PlayStation and Nintendo customers, the only problem is that they are end of life games.
Xbox head Phil Spencer said that Starfield and Indiana Jones, two games that some observers had named as multiplatform candidates are not among the four titles, which will be available to Sony and Nintendo console users.
Spencer said the individual game teams would make their own announcements about which console games Sony and Nintendo console users will get, but said two were community-driven titles, while the other two were smaller games “never meant to be billed as platform exclusives.”
The big question now is whether their competitors will ever get premium games from Microsoft after the software Company completed its US$69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October 2023 and has now released the first big hint that their primary objective is to get console gamers to switch to Microsoft’s Xbox.
Some analysts claimed that it was imperative that they made premium games available in an effort to reap financial returns that would justify the massive acquisition.
Microsoft now faces choices about when to give Xbox users an advantage with exclusive games.
Exclusives can drive purchases of Xbox hardware.
Phil Spence Microsoft X Box President
But sharing titles with Nintendo and Sony means more copies of games will be sold.
Bloomberg claims that during the past decade, Microsoft has sweetened the appeal of owning an Xbox by making three large game acquisitions and several smaller ones, giving the tech giant access to more exclusive content.
They also claim that Microsoft has to tread carefully in making titles exclusive, since that was a major sticking point in the antitrust review of its purchase of Activision Blizzard. As a concession, Microsoft agreed to continue selling Activision’s highly lucrative Call of Duty on rival platforms.
Of the games that are being made available to their competitors Spencer said they had reached their full potential on Xbox and PC.
“We don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that,” Spencer said, emphasizing the need to grow the Xbox business and brand for the long run.
He added, “Looking forward, I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms to get them more interested in Xbox. We think there’s a good brand value for Xbox there.”
During the call, Xbox president Sarah Bond announced that Activision Blizzard games would begin to be added into Game Pass offerings, starting with Diablo 4, which will be added to the catalogue on March 28.
Bond also emphasized that Microsoft is still working on hardware for the future, saying the focus for the next generation is “delivering the largest technical leap you will ever have seen in a hardware generation.”
Bloomberg claims that when Microsoft buys a company that supplies games for Sony, and then makes those games exclusively for Xbox, it’s losing a revenue stream.
The company has kept MineCraft, the first big acquisition under Spencer, on rival platforms and delivered on games promised exclusively to Sony after acquiring ZeniMax and its storied Bethesda Softworks in 2020.
In documents filed with Brazilian regulators in 2022, the company said it simply wouldn’t be profitable for Microsoft to keep Call of Duty games off PlayStation.
As for the future Spence claimed, “We want to learn, to see what’s going to happen”.
I don’t know if these games are going to be considered Xbox games when they hit those other platforms, and maybe they don’t find an audience for some reason.”
By not identifying the four games that will be available on Switch and PlayStation, Microsoft risks continuing to anger Xbox players, who have taken to social media to protest the move.
Without exclusive games, they say, it makes no sense to buy an Xbox. Game developers, they worry, will come to the same conclusion, and make their titles for PlayStation or Nintendo, which have more market share, further eroding the value of owning an Xbox and ultimately killing the possibility of any future Xbox hardware.
But Spencer has said in the past that the idea of games made exclusively for one device “is something we’re just going to see less and less of.”
