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Whereas Sony and Nintendo continue to keep their best games behind a huge exclusivity paywall, Microsoft is bringing some of its best games to other platforms. While some see it as a last-ditch effort to squeeze more sales out of their struggling titles, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella doesn’t see it that way.
As part of the company’s third-quarter earnings call (via The Motley Fool), Nadella re-revealed the company’s commitment to expanding its games to new platforms, starting with four of its “fan-favorite titles.”
Nadella adds that the move has been a success, announcing that it had “seven games among the top 25 on the PlayStation store,” which it says is more than any other publisher.
Pentiment (February 22), Hi-Fi Rush (March 9), Grounded (April 16), and Sea of Thieves (April 30) were all confirmed to be headed to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms earlier this year. In addition to these four, Nadella also likely included Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Diablo 4 in its counting. It’s unclear what the seventh game is but it’s probably Overwatch 2.
With that said, Microsoft is in a prime position to start publishing all its games everywhere with an extensive library of popular titles. This isn’t good news for the Xbox brand, but Microsoft is at least making more money off of software sales with its latest move.
What’s Next for Microsoft?
Microsoft spent around $75 billion to acquire two of the biggest video game publishers in the past four years.
The company’s first major acquisition, ZeniMax Media, cost $8.1 billion. It has released a pair of exclusive Xbox titles under the Microsoft Gaming umbrella so far: Starfield and Redfall. Incoming games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Fallout 5, and The Elder Scrolls 6 are all expected to be exclusive to Xbox when they come out.
The other and easily more controversial purchase, Activision Blizzard King, was a $68.7 billion purchase that took nearly two years to complete. To make it happen, it had to sign off on a deal guaranteeing that Call of Duty remains a multiplatform title for the next decade.
The series of acquisitions by Microsoft guarantees that it will remain relevant for as long as gaming is around.
The only question is, will Xbox still exist as a gaming platform in a few years or will Microsoft be a video game publisher exclusively?
It is the good move for Microsoft to increase income and better for players because platform exclusivity is tiring