It’s been an absolute rollercoaster of a week forXboxfans, as rumors are flying regarding potential plans that will take several of the platform’s exclusive titles to other systems such as PlayStation. Originally,Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieveswere the only two titles supposedly considered for release on other systems, butfurther rumorsof titles likeStarfieldandIndiana Jonesheading to PlayStation have thrown the future of Xbox into question.
Xbox head Phil Spencer was then forced to issue a statement on the whole situation, who said that Xbox is “listening” to fans and thata business event scheduled for next week should clear up the platform’s future. That’s the best explanation that Xbox is offering for now, butfrom journalist Shannon Liao has claimed that Spencer held an internal townhall meeting the day after his announcement to ease the worries of employees.
In this meeting, Spencer reportedly told employees that the company has “no plans” to stop making Xbox consoles, and that they’ll still be a big part of its strategy of bringing games to other platforms going forward. However, it doesn’t seem as though Spencer addressed the rumors surrounding titles such as Starfield and Indiana Jones heading to PlayStation, which we’ll probably hear more about during this “business event” next week.
Even Xbox’s developers havereportedly been left in the darkas to what exactly Spencer is going to discuss at next week’s event.
This will more than likely come as welcome news for Xbox owners, especially as people have begun speculating that the company may be going third-party, similar to Sega back in 2001. It’s understandable, simply because just the idea of Xbox releasing titles on PlayStation would bring about a massive in the industry, but things have definitely been overblown a little with Xbox’s silence regarding the matter.
If we’re being sensible regarding all these rumors, it’s possible that Xbox could be going all in on timed-exclusives. It would make a lot of sense for Xbox to launch its own exclusives on its consoles and PC, and then send them to PlayStation six months or a year down the line. It’s something that even PlayStation has been doing, steadily bringing its exclusives to Steam years after the fact. It’s sensible, especially for a company trailing as badly as Xbox is, and doesn’t really devalue the platform.
Xbox still has Game Pass, letting you access first-party title at launch for free, and those that already have their Xbox consoles aren’t going to give them up to get a PlayStation which will force them to pay $70 a pop for them. We’ll get the rundown of Xbox’s official plans next week, and it’s best to take everything you see on social media about the platform with a pinch of salt until then.
