More great games are coming to the PS5, and that’s never a bad thing. Microsoft announced during a highly massaged corporate message that it’ll bring four first-party titles to rival systems, although it wouldn’t name any names. Fortunately, the rumours have been so strong that we can surmise they’ll be rhythm brawler Hi-Fi Rush, historical adventure Pentiment, nautical outing Sea of Thieves, and survival game Grounded. These fit Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s description of two smaller titles and two live service experiences.
None of this will help clear up speculation about its future plans, of course. The Redmond firm bobbed and weaved around the elephant in the room, suggesting there’ll still be exclusives for its own Xbox consoles – while simultaneously failing to rule anything out. Noticeably, Spencer stressed that tentpole titles Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are not part of the aforementioned four coming to rival systems. However, in an interview with The Verge published immediately afterwards, he noted: “I don't think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform.”
Xbox hierarchy appears to be banking on exclusivity going away entirely, as game budgets spiral out of control and publishers look to release their titles in as many places as possible. It’s true that the lines between hardware are blurring, as even Sony plans to bring more of its intellectual property to PC. Looking at the budgets attributed to major titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and the razor-thin margins these platform holders are operating on, it does put the industry in a precarious position.
But we’re not sure Microsoft’s bizarrely structured podcast will do anything to ease the rampant rumours about Xbox’s future. Spencer and his subordinates were forced to walk a tightrope, committing to their own console while simultaneously confirming some of their games will be playable elsewhere. Officially, it’s only announcing the four titles outlined at the top of this article, but already speculation abounds about what will follow.
And that’s means the rumours are only going to continue. Spencer, like any great salesman, suggested it’ll only port more titles if this initial batch perform well; our assumption is that more games will follow, it’s just a matter of when. Without drawing out any hard lines for fans to follow, there’s going to be conjecture about every first-party title that Xbox publishes. For now, all we can really conclude is that PS5 is about to get an additional injection of games, and like we said from the start, that’s never a bad thing.
What did you make of Xbox’s business update event? Did you think it was a bunch of hot air, or has the Redmond firm successfully cleared up the rumours? Are you excited for any of the four titles rumoured to be ported to PlayStation, and why? Let us know in the comments section below.
Which of the four Xbox titles rumoured for PS5 will you buy? (1,011 votes)
- Grounded
- Hi-Fi Rush
- Pentiment
- Sea of Thieves
- None of them
Comments 63
I can’t believe Xbox had over a week to prep messaging for this event and this was the best they could do. Only four games, older/small/live service, with no Starfield or Indiana Jones…BUT…exclusivity is winding down and who can say what will release where. Phil Spencer’s doublespeak would have made George Orwell proud!
Bottom line, Xbox games are going multiplat. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon. Hard stop.
At a time when most people wanted full transparency on Xbox exclusives going forward, MS instead were as clear as fog while also giving everyone a glorified shareholders meeting where they still insist on having every finger in every pie but wont fully commit to any of them.
I like smaller titles. Hell, some of my favorite franchises are smaller titles (in terms of scale). Astro Bot, Mario (kinda), Kirby, Rayman (damn you Ubisoft). So it's good to see Xbox POSSIBLY bringing smaller titles like Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush, since those games seem to fit well as multi-platform titles.
Still kinda salty about the snoozefest of a conference, but Microsoft has done much, MUCH worse. And Sony and Nintendo too, y'all aren't innocent.
Do you all think Playstation will do away with console exclusivity? I don't think they will, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did, like it obviously did for the Xbox gamers.
Not interested in any of those games in the slightest but I hope they do extremely well so that Microsoft brings over the real juicy stuff in their catalog🤞
@Suppressed technically they already are starting to because they're releasing lots of games onto PC. Also some like future Bungie games and MLB the Show are releasing on Xbox as well.
@anoyonmus if I remember correctly, MLB forced Sony to release their game on other platforms, but I'm not sure about the Bungie games.
@Suppressed Bungie stated they want to be independent iirc. Also the next game by Bungie will be on Xbox and PC as well. But regardless, Sony is still releasing many of their games on PC with Until Dawn and HFW being next.
Poll isn't exactly looking great for this new strategy thus far. 32% don't want any of them?!
(I must admit, I'm only really interested in Hi-Fi Rush myself.)
In fact, Microsoft just reiterated what they said in the past: They decide on a game-to-game basis, they remain to be a console platform holder, and Game Pass will stick to Xbox console and PC.
The message of this video was: Development costs are so high that there will be more multi-platform games, and they will stay Xbox-console- and PC-exclusive for min 1 year. That‘s not far away of what we already see and can expect from Sony!
i suspect once a game stops selling it will come to PlayStation be that a year 2 years or more
This was about as bad of an announcement as Sony's showcases/SoPs from last year. Probably worse. You don't announce something a week or so in advance, only to literally fail to do what you promised.
Where's the strategy they were supposed to lay out? We know little more than we did before this. Weird that they dropped the ball on this so badly after such a great show last month.
That crap shoulda been a tweet.
If I wanted to play Xbox games I would have got a Xbox lol gears of war possibly but not really missing out , that xbox podcast sums then up lol embarrassing
It makes me wonders whether the many rumours of Starfield and Indiana Jones going multiplat were actually incorrect, or whether Xbox got scared over all the negative reactions over the past week and have subtly pushed that decision down the road for a while.
The fact is there will be a what's next, so these rumours will continue for the foreseeable future and likely never go away.
@get2sammyb Well the way people moan about live service games on here and bash Sony for having live service plans, I would expect the majority not to be interested in Sea of Thieves or Grounded.
Grounded is a terrific game, I’d say the best console survival game. Unfortunately because it was a ‘small team project’ it spent so long in early access that the full launch didn’t make much of a ripple. Don’t be fooled by the chirpy teenage characters it is pretty savage! Emphatically not for arachnophobes - check out some of the YouTube clips!
It's pretty obvious where things are heading long term. To everybody who isn't a dumb fanboy.
Even new PlayStation president said that - console market isn't growing and Microsoft and Sony needs to find new audience ie. PC market and "other consoles" market. Which is obvious since big AAA games are increasingly becoming unsustainable and things will only become worse and worse.
Sony is effectively mirroring Microsoft's strategy, but because they have higher instalbase of console players, they have a cushion of doing that slowly. At first it was staggered PC releases. Then it was day one PC releases and last step is staggered "other consoles" releases or "you don't ned a console, because we have streaming service."
So yeah. Starfield will eventually end up on PlayStation 5. Several years after Xbox release when nobody from Xbox audience will even care anymore. But I think that by the end of this gen, same thing will be true even for games like Spider-Man 2.
Sony is basically currently in position where Xbox was in 2016-2017. And they are following almost each step except first-party games in sub service day one.
They wish they could bring Starfield but just scared of the backlash from the Xbox loyalists, looks like a last minute change. So they had to reassure them like "it's not Starfield and Indiana Jones," you can relax now.
Microsoft is releasing more games on Playstation, especially Bethesda titles but they won't say it yet. They were very afraid of the backlash so they kept beating about the bush and didn't give a straight answer. I am 90% sure that Starfield, Indiana Jones, and other AAA games are coming to PS5 for multiple reasons.
1) First of all, these AAA games take a lot of time and money to make and Gamepass is not enough to recover the costs or make a profit on those games. As MS stated an average Gamepass customer pays only $9.26 per month which is not enough to pay for all the development costs, employee salaries, equipment & infrastructure costs, and marketing costs.
2) Secondly, they spent over $70 billion on acquisitions and they need to recover that $70 billion and also make enough money on top of it for long enough to justify the purchase. They cannot recover their $70 billion by releasing Day 1 and keeping their games exclusive to Game Pass even in the next 50 years if an average Xbox user is paying just $9.26 per month.
3) Third, their hardware business is failing with Series consoles selling worse than last-gen One consoles. They are not making money on consoles and they are not making enough money on software sales with that low installed base, platform exclusivity, and GamePass conditioning Xbox fans to not buy games.
4) The purpose of starting and running a business is to make money. There is no point in keeping games exclusive to Xbox or staying in the home console industry if they cannot make more money than they are spending without siphoning money from other divisions.
In the end, they have no other choice but to release their games on rival platforms IF they want to make money and remain in the gaming industry. However, they cannot say it outright due to fear of backlash from the small but dedicated fanbase. It is clear they are proverbially slowly boiling the frog, getting a foot in the door, or easing it in before shoving it all the way.
My honest take is that it was a great, reactionary showing from the XBOX top brass.
First off, yes, maybe interesting games like Pentiment crosses over, and if the market is there, other games will follow. Good for me, as a gamer.
Secondly, I think it was nice for the average xbot to hear that they're supporting hardware and the overall path forward. There were even a few reveals for the patient viewer.
Sure, they'd (the fans) probably want to see PlayStation commit some titles the other way, but those are rare occasions.
I quite like the competition even though Nintendo Switch just recently have become challenged by Steam Deck and the lines, and it is not like they haven't been able to output games that are highly sought after and praised. PlayStation could do fine without XBOX, but I think we are better with healthy competition.
The only people still running with rumours are all the insiders and websites who just got found out for knowing very little. Almost all of the rumours ended up being completely fabricated and now everyone is desperately running around trying to save a tiny bit of credibility, hence articles like this. It's pretty funny to be honest.
@Sakai After watching Phil wringing his hands whilst they all explained the virtues of cross platform for the entirity of the show, its hardly credible to me that you could come away with that conclusion, baffling.
Obviously, you will interptet that show how you wish, but its extremely clear to me, and Id suggest 90% of anyone watching that cast, that multi plat releases are the future for xbox.
Im not personally affected, as Im a multi platform gamer, but its an interesting development for the games buisness as a whole, and reflects the reality of needing the biggest market you can get in order to capatalise on the investments modern games dev requires.
Definitely 'more to follow'.
They handled that really badly. They needed to squash the rumours or confirm the rumours and they somehow managed to do both and neither. I'm incredibly surprised to see Xbox fans happy with this and somehow seeing it as a "win".
All I know is, I'll be playing Indiana Jones on PS5. Take that to the bank.
Would of been nice if more games were coming, but I'm looking forward to playing Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves on my PS5.
@Titntin I didnt actually state my opinion/conclusion. For the record i think that no doubt there will be a mixture of exclusives, timed exclusives and day 1 multiplatform releases for xbox in the future.
But almost all of the rumours turned out false and alot of websites and insiders have lost all their credibility in the space of 25minutes, let's not pretend otherwise. That's what I was commenting on
@Sakai The rumours I heard were clearly that Xbox were going multi-platform. That has been confirmed by 30 minutes of the heads of xbox telling us why they need their games on all screens and all platforms.
If you are referring to the endless guesses of which titles come first and when - that's just the normal guess work of the net? Its similar to the speculation of what titles will appear in a SOP or summer event. They are always wrong and always taken with a 'pinch of salt', so though speculation was rampant, it didnt seem to be any more wrong than their usual speculation? It should have been properly controlled by MS, but they dropped the ball. If you gave such speculation any meaningful attention then you are at fault for assuming any credibility to obvious guess work, and you are quite right to 'recalibrate' your credibility ratings!
Essentially though, the main rumour that started the speculation - that microsoft are going multi platform - was convincingly proved last night?
@Titntin I mean there has been countless more rumours than that, but if you would like to pretend otherwise then that's ok. That's what my original comment was about.
I have said what I think will happen moving forward, a mixture of exclusives and multiplatform day and date, not sure what more I can say. I am not disagreeing with you, I don't think?
It was a bizarre show no doubt. I'm excited to see Hi-Fi Rush for sure as that was one of the first games I planned on getting when I got an Xbox. I am in a bit of a weird spot now though as I was planning on getting an Xbox soon...but now I might just hold off and see where this goes.
I know he said "the wall isn't coming down" but I honestly just don't buy it. The messaging was too murky for me to think this is just a one time thing.
I'll be all over Hi Fi Rush and Pentiment on day 1. I'll do my part to signal to Xbox that their good, single player games, can do well on PS.
@Sakai
Not at all mate, we appear to broadly see the same outcome!
I think we both have very different takes on the wild speculation and rumours. You seem to suggest those who started and engaged with them lost some credibility, whilst I suggest they had none to start with. We don't see this hugely different.
What did shock me was the lack of faith so many Xbox supporters had in MS to do the right thing for them, based just on the idle speculation. I had thought that support for team green was more solid that it appeared to be..
Irrespective of what is 'exclusive', if you prefer the platform and eco system it was clear it would be going nowhere. GP is only on PC and Xbox hardware, getting rid of xbox hardware would not make any commercial sense. If they could ever get GP on other consoles, then there's potentially a conversation to be had, but there's at least another hardware generation before that might become a possability.
@Titntin its not that interesting for game business development.
Xbox as a brand is failing, they've released hardly any true meaningful exclusives for years, no ones buying into their economy system.
Yes it may of started at xbox one with that disaster but they have not even come close to what Phil said when he took over.
Phil promised games and year on year failed to deliver anything.
All what's happening is the xbox brand is being folded back into Microsoft games and they'll just become a publisher again, just like take two, ea, ubisoft.
They'll keep trying with game pass. Maybe it'll work maybe it won't but 1 things for sure is that the day and date releases onto the platform has hurt their own bank balance.
What baffles me is why release 4 small titles to try and gauge people, surely they should stick or make some remasters of their top franchise and see how they will do. 4 small titles will not prove anything in my eyes.
All I gained all of this is, they built up to this and still haven't actually told us what is happening.
@Titntin that's a relief, I thought we came away with the same conclusions but I got confused there for a moment mate! Some of the reactions to last night have been funny to read!
After some of their comments last night and reading between the lines a little, gamepass on other hardware seems little more than pipe dream and very unlikely to happen anytime soon. I just don't think Sony or Nintendo have any interest in it, at all. Consoles may even be obsolete by then, but that's all just guesswork on my part and reading between the lines. Who knows what the future will bring!
This is their plan. Get some ps players hooked on their stuff. Make it exclusive once the next xbox comes out, get all the PlayStation players.
I'm serious. With how bad their strategies have been this wouldn't even surprise me.
@Bez87
Thanks for sharing your views mate.
With only three major hardware makers in console space, I consider one of them going muti-plat to be' interesting for game business development'. But that's just my view and I'm happy to concede its no more right than your own view. Its certainly attracting a lot of press interest, even in the mainstream press, so I guess others see it as significant too.
As for everything else you have stated, some might see it as harsh, but its a pretty fair take on where their business is. They are not making significant changes because they are happy with the status quo, I thinks that's a given.
Like yourself, I wish they had the balls to come right out and say what they are doing instead of 30 minutes of saying so little, but given the ridiculous reactions from some of their own 'fans', they had a tricky tightrope to walk.
Time will tell all!
I'm split. I have Game Pass so there's little point buying any of these. But I do want to support multi-platform releases, so might double dip on Hi-Fi Rush.
I have an Xbox an Gamepass so there is zero reason for me to buy these on PS5 and Switch. I would rather save my money for PlayStation and Nintendo exclusive games.
The stories around it are getting old and boring, fast.
@anoyonmus pc isn't a console and doesn't affect sales of the ps5 in any way , it's a moot point, you can't really compare xbox releasing their games on a rival console, nobody is gonna buy an xbox for mlb and destiny
@themightyant I think sea of thieves will sell the most out of those
So let me get this straight:
Two weeks ago: "Microsoft is getting out of the console business and we're getting Gears of War and Starfield on PlayStation. Trust me, bro!"
Yesterday: "Microsoft is briging four indie games to PlayStation."
Ah well, YouTubers and media outlets got their clicks and the rest of us can move right along. I am excited for Pentiment coming to PlayStation, though.
@Suppressed Bungie did the same or they wouldn’t have agreed to Sony buying them
@Coversnail they weren’t and I guarantee they will come to ps as well as blade in a few years. MS knew what they were doing with their double speak and having these games as the first four to come. It gives time for the hardcore Xbox fanboys to get over their anger at which point the heavy hitters will start releasing
@Godot25 yeah no Sony had already made it crystal clear that their live service games would be day and date on pc but there’s no way in hell they will release their single player exclusives on Xbox because unlike Xbox exclusives PlayStations review well,sell well and their console sells
@dark_knightmare2 This is exactly what people said about possibility of PlayStation releasing their games on PC few years ago. And look where we are now.
And then goalposts shifted towards "but no PlayStation game will be on PC day one." And look where we are now.
Current goalpost is "but no PlayStation story-driven game on PC day one." Just wait for that
Sony is just boiling frog same way as Microsoft. Only difference is that Microsoft started boiling process in 2016, while Sony started it in 2020.
Hi there fellow gamers.
I voted none of them, because I also have a Series X and Gamepass, so there is that.
But like @themightyant mentioned, I am also kinda torn, since
Hi-Fi Rush was one of the best games that came out last year and the best Xbox game of last year, in my opinion, and I wouldn´t mind purchasing the game for my PS5 or my Switch for that matter, and thus owning it, but I can also do just that on my Series X.
I do want to support these kind of games because we have been lacking these different types of experiences from the big developers.
As for the future, I think we will see more Xbox games coming to other platforms. Not today and not the really big ones like Halo or Forza, but it will happen.
Cheers and happy gaming folks
@Godot25 yes some fans didn’t think Sony would release their games on pc but they come like two years after and some still aren’t in sight like GOT or tlou part 2. Sony was very clear a year or two ago whenever it was that all their gaas titles would be day and date on pc so nobody is moving goalposts. Just like Sony needed to do what gamepass does which come to find out isn’t ***** and they didn’t they don’t need to release their sp games on Xbox and won’t anytime soon because once again just like Nintendo they sell software to move hardware and unlike MS they are very successful at doing that so they have no need to release games on Xbox.
Im unlikely to buy any - at least not at full price. Sea of thieves is tempting for the monkey island content, but i may just watch on youtube tbh as i dont really have time for live service titles
I don't buy for a minute that this will be it. Keeping Starfield and Indiana Jones on Xbox means leaving a TON of money on the table, and for what, to keep fighting a war they've already lost? Mark my words both games will be on PS5 by mid-2025.
Out of the 4 mentioned, I'm not likely to buy any of them, because I've already played 2 of them on GP, and the other 2 don't interest me.
@Titntin ill give you your credit. I like the opinion.
Mainstream and journalist are just catching up blinded.
Xbox as a brand is awful.
Not because Xbox is a bad platform or even its internal development teams. Its the mismanagement and 0 basic understanding of what gamers want.
I honestly believe this since xbox 1 they've had an identity crisis.
Phil I like the guy, he comes across like he knows what he talks about but I honestly believe he's a man who talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk.
All he's ever done is talk since he got in and year on year disappointment. No games and when the games came not really up to snuff.
Yes he turned xbox around but I honestly believe he did this just by his talking and not with any real action.
I mean he's wanted to cut corners ever since by just buying top end multiplatform companies. Panic mode in my mind.
You could actually argue that the only reason xbox got as far as it has, is because xbox 360 got out a whole year in before PS3 came out and was cheaper.
Due to the fact once ps3 and xbox 360 truly came to an end, ps3 outsold the 360.
The funny thing in all this is.... if xbox goes multi plat properly then all our multiplat games we thought we had all lost to corporate greed and exclusivity have now become multi plat again hahahaha
Cutting corners in the end doesn't get you the results you want
I know nothing about pentiment and grounded but will likely check hifi rush out.
Sea of thieves doesn’t interest me. Sorry rare.
Hi Fi Rush is the only one I want, they can keep the rest.
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Hi-Fi rush looks interesting enough but I'm not big on rhythm games.
None of these for me...Coudn't even play them on Gamepass.
They should bring their A game like Forza Horizon 5, the best arcade current gen race sim
this could also be testing to the waters to see if this works out or not. but these games will be exclusive to pc / xbox for at least a 1 year either way.
Is the prospect of these exclusives really so enticing to get the rumour mill turning? Hi-fi rush is nice, but other than that I can see most just shrugging their shoulders.
I find Sara Bond's throwaway quote about new hardware being
"largest leap in technology between generations"
such a classic piece of MS marketing nonsense.
None of these 4 for me. If they do some remaster collection of Gears of War 1-3 games and bring it to ps, it's day 1 for me. Maybe Ori games would be cool, but really not much else - don't care about Starfield, Halo, Forza, CoD, Hellblade, Indiana Jones and so on. They have still very little so I would even start considering xbox as my secondary console (Switch would be definitely better choice imo).
But that's just me and my opinion, of course, I wish for other ps players that MS will bring some of their 1st party titles to ps. I'm sure they will sell good on ps because ps players are used to buying the games apart from xbox obes but it's obviously because of GP
To be honest, I didn’t even know Pentiment was even out yet. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking it looked interesting but then completely forgot about it. I guess one positive from this ridiculously PR focussed podcast (Xbox is fine but we’re porting some of our games over cos they’re not making as much money as we thought they would. But everything is fine and we’re still great. Oh, and Starfield and Indiana Jones are staying exclusive but we don’t think anything will be exclusive in the future. But these ones are and we don’t think Helldivers 2 should be exclusive but we’re keeping our own exclusives. But we don’t believe in exclusives anymore) it’s that I’ve actually blown the dust off my Series X and downloaded it. 👍 I’ll probably try all 4 while I still have Game Pass and then buy any I like on PS5 when my GP runs out next year.
Starfield will eventually make it's way to Playstation and sell good. It is a niche game but it will attract a dedicated audience. I think it is pretty good and they should move it over to Playstation as soon as possible.
Meh....whatever. None of that makes my arm hair stand on end.
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