A new report claims that more major Xbox exclusives, such as Halo or Forza could be coming to PlayStation. Recently, Microsoft has experimented with bringing some of its exclusive titles to other consoles, with Sea of Thieves being so popular on PlayStation that it was one of the most pre-ordered titles on its store, and crashed its servers at launch due to such high demand.
According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, with this success, Microsoft is considering continuing this trend with some of its major franchises with a plan codenamed “Latitude“. Corden cites Halo, Gears, or Forza as major exclusives that would currently entice players to purchase an Xbox console, but says that Microsoft is pushing for no “red line” for what games could come to PlayStation, with Microsoft’s managing director Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood’s mandate to increase every department’s margins, seeing it as an easy way to generate more revenue over a larger consumer base.
When announcing the plan to bring the four initial Xbox titles to other consoles, which were ultimately Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Grounded, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer stated that Microsoft is already a major publisher on PlayStation, although this seems to have been largely through releases from studios such as Bethesda or Activision Blizzard that previously published titles across multiple platforms before being acquired by Microsoft. If Xbox puts it major console-sellers like Halo on PlayStation, it does begin to raise the question of whether consumers will feel the need to purchase an Xbox, especially with all Microsoft titles also launching on PC, giving multiple ways to play its exclusives.
It’s possible that future releases could see more timed exclusives on console, much as Sony does with its PlayStation titles such as God of War or Marvel’s Spider-Man before bringing them to PC, but even then, Sony isn’t releasing these exclusives on its rival console. In his report, Corden argues that while in a perfect world, it’s great that more people get to play these games, pursuing this strategy is a short-term margin booster with long-term consequences, as it could ultimately destroy the foundational reason to buy an Xbox in the first place.
It’s yet to be seen how this strategy will play out, but with Microsoft’s recent decisions, particularly on the Xbox front with the closure of several award-winning studios lately, it is sure to come under plenty of scrutiny. With the company’s acquisitions and its development of cloud-based apps, it is possible that Microsoft’s future could be more down the lines of bringing its Game Pass subscription app to other devices – as it already has done with some smart TVs – to negate the need for developing consoles anyway. This subscription does seem to be a steady source of income for them across PC and Xbox consoles, so bringing it to other platforms such as PlayStation – maybe even merging it with PS+ as Ubisoft has with its subscription – would just increase the number of potential subscribers.
Source: Windows Central