Xbox offers its competitors four exclusive video games – a strategic change

Are four Xbox games coming to other consoles soon? Xbox, the video game company of US giant Microsoft, announced on Thursday that some of its previously exclusive games will be available on other platforms. A major strategic change allowing the company to better compete with its main Japanese competitors Sony and Nintendo. “These are games that have been available to Xbox players for at least a year, including some little-known gems that deserve a wider release.” writes Xbox to X.

“We believe it’s time for us to leverage what other platforms offer to grow our franchises,” which are video games originally developed exclusively for Xbox, Xbox chief Phil Spencer explained during an online presentation. “I firmly believe that in five to ten years, exclusive media games will represent a smaller and smaller part of the industry,” he added.

But Xbox is starting out cautiously, as it will initially only make four of its games available to competitors. “We’re not promising anything beyond these four games,” warned Phil Spencer. “So if you’re on another platform and you see them coming, don’t take that as a signal that everyone else will follow.” According to technology news site The Verge, these will be Xbox games “Hi-Fi Rush”, “Pentiment”, “Sea of ​​Thieves” and “Gounded”. However, none of them are blockbusters.

This announcement caused some disappointment. Many were hoping that Xbox would open up its catalog of exclusives, which includes hits like “Halo,” “Indiana Jones” and “Starfield.” “Why did Xbox wait a week and leave its entire community on the brink of collapse when the only thing worth reporting was that four small games were going cross-platform? “reacted a member of the Reddit forum dedicated to the Phil Spencer podcast. “This is a major change,” another assured, however, believing that this is just the beginning.

Strong competition from Sony and Nintendo.

This announcement comes as Xbox is still facing competition from Sony’s PlayStation 5 (PS5) console. According to data firm Ampere, Microsoft’s console sales fell 15% last year, while PS5 sales jumped 65% and Sony sold three times more than its rival. Beyond consoles, Microsoft is looking to buy games and updates online to boost its presence in the sector.

The US group is also looking to boost its video game sales after completing last October’s mammoth acquisition ($69 billion) of game publisher Activision Blizzard, whose portfolio includes some huge multi-platform successes such as “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush”. “Video games are becoming increasingly expensive to develop, so if you make them available on more platforms, you will increase their profitability,” Serkan Toto, head of specialist research company Kantan Games in Japan, reminds AFP.

Following Activision’s costly acquisition, Xbox is “under pressure” to find new ways to accelerate its sales, stresses this expert, who, in addition to Thursday’s “trial balloon” announcement, expects to see “a lot more Xbox games on other platforms in the future.”

Could its big rivals Sony and Nintendo be tempted to do the same? According to Serkan Toto, nothing is less certain. Even if PlayStation 5 sales start to dry up, “I don’t think Sony will be forced to offer its exclusive games to Microsoft,” he said. Moreover, in a sense, Sony already uses a multi-platform model: some of its games can be played on PC, and the group wants to expand its offering in this segment. For its part, Nintendo will “never give up its exclusive games” because they are “absolutely essential” to its identity, Mr. Toto stresses. “So you can forget about the idea of ​​one day seeing Mario or Pokemon games on PC or PlayStation, for example.”