Since Microsoft has taken their time to apparently gather their thoughts as their fanbase melts down from rumors and speculation, it’s up to a fleet of insiders fighting with each other about what they’ve heard or not heard about what’s happening.
The list of games that Microsoft has been considering taking multiplatform has been wide, and come in from a number of different sources. Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves seem like near guarantees at this point, but three other games, Starfield, Indiana Jones and Gears of War have been in the “are being considered” pile, each one reported by a different source.
The original report was from XboxEra, and then was corroborated by a different insider, NatetheHate. However, now NatetheHate is retracting his support of the claim, saying it’s false. Meanwhile, XboxEra made a statement on this development, indicating they are not backing off on their original claim at all, even as Nate has retracted his:
“No, not even a little. We stand by our report, and you can see that Nate has completely backed down and made clear he was only talking about himself…I trust Jon, he worked on this for a while and got backed up by multiple other people with similar info.”
Starfield is probably the key game in this overall discussion of Xbox taking games multiplatform, as it’s likely going to end up as their highest profile exclusive of this current console generation, and it was repeatedly sold as an exclusive as a new IP Xbox wanted full control of, unlike existing ones it bought like Call of Duty. To send that to PlayStation would break that promise and suggest a “record” Game Pass launch and minimal sales weren’t enough for how big that game was supposed to be.
But if Starfield does not come to PlayStation, that may indicate other bigger games are not either, and if this just stays as Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves, it would be far less of a big deal.
The problem with these reports is that everything still might be in flux. A lot of these are that Microsoft is “considering” or “planning” the idea of an exclusive release elsewhere, which is not a guarantee they’ll do it. And it is especially not a guarantee given the extreme pushback they’ve seen from Xbox fans about even the rumors of this, which may have caused them to change course. Though when a $3 trillion company wants to do something, they usually will do it.
I maintain it would be a mistake to start sending huge Xbox games over to PlayStation like Starfield, but we don’t know if Microsoft will agree. Either way, one insider here will be right and one will be wrong, and even if this was heavily considered and decided against, it’s not like Microsoft would actually explain that. We’ll find out next week. Maybe. Hopefully.
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