Microsoft’s Xbox Changes Course on Title Exclusivity

Microsoft has surprised the gaming industry by changing tack and announcing some of its formerly exclusive titles will now be released for competing systems. This is a new approach to how Microsoft has been treating its gaming properties recently and could indicate some changes behind the scenes.

Microsoft’s New Move

The latest move was announced by Xbox head Phil Spencer, who outlined Xbox’s new exclusivity strategy via the Official Xbox Podcast. During the podcast, Spencer noted that four titles would be testing the waters of other platforms, though we don’t yet know what these titles will be. Smaller titles like Hi-Fi Rush seem likely, as this game would run well on Nintendo’s less powerful consoles. Sea of Thieves is also a probable candidate, though its hardware demands make it a more likely target for Sony’s more powerful PlayStation 5 platform. With more news yet to come, fans are left wondering if big titles like Halo might make a similar jump.

Going Against Trajectory

Microsoft’s new direction is surprising because it goes against the company’s most recent direction with the Xbox platform. While Xbox Series X and S spokespeople originally claimed that the console would focus on exclusivity, this was widely regarded as a marketing line. Sony and Nintendo boasted strong exclusive lineups at the launch time, so it made sense for Xbox to try to shift focus.

More revealing was Microsoft’s later acquisition of some of gaming’s biggest publishers and developers with Bethesda and Activision Blizzard for $8.1 billion and $75.4 billion respectively. Ownership over these companies meant Microsoft managed the future launches of series like Call of Duty, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Doom, Overwatch, and much more. Having bided their time, Microsoft then matched and even surpassed the exclusive lineups of other platforms, and they began to show the virtues of exclusive releases.

This is what makes it so unexpected that Microsoft would reverse course again in the same generation. There’s something behind the scenes in long-term profit calculations that would have driven this decision, but as outsiders, we can only speculate.

The Advantages of an Open Market

Reasons for a change aside, there’s no question that a more open market is better for the health of gaming as a whole. This has been illustrated in other industries that have offered open game selections for decades. Online casinos are some of the biggest examples here, with titles that are shared over many different websites. These online casinos succeed through competing with other aspects like free spins no deposit bonuses on services like 7Bit Casino and Spin Better. Players are also free to choose between websites based on elements like user interfaces and experience, all of which provide more than exclusive gaming markets could.

Open markets also offer advantages in how they help recuperate ballooning game development costs. As big developers continue to raise the bar on graphical fidelity, it becomes increasingly difficult to see returns on investment. To make as much of a return as possible, they could reduce the emphasis they put on graphics, or they could offer their games on more platforms. They demonstrably won’t do the former, so Microsoft doing the latter is a sensible decision.

Some advantages come to the competitive market through more open infrastructure. Mainstream videogame competition in the likes of the Esports World Cup titles reaches wide audiences because of the low demands in the included PC games like CS: GO and Dota 2. The more console games embrace a broad player base through platform agnosticism, the bigger the competitive market can grow, the more copies will sell, and the more profitable a title can be.

The current Xbox Series of consoles are around halfway through their lifespans, leaving questions about how far Microsoft will embrace this new direction over the following years. While PlayStation and Switch players are all too happy to see more games on their system, Xbox’s management team must weigh the next moves carefully.

Whatever Xbox chooses to do, Sony and Nintendo are less likely to follow suit, and without exclusives, Microsoft is likely to remain in third place in the console wars. Gamers will have to watch these developments carefully, as the implications of Microsoft’s next moves could be felt for generations to come.