“We're always looking to learn as a leadership team and to grow,” said Spencer. “And we think this is an interesting point in time for us to use what some of the other platforms have right now to help grow our franchises.”
He continued: “I'm not going to name those games. The teams that are building those games have announced plans that are not too far away. As we know, game teams put a lot of energy into their announcements with the partners. So, I don't want to take anything away from those teams. So, I won't be talking about the titles specifically. But I think when they come out, it'll make sense.”
The likelihood is the four games will be Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves, as per previous rumours. Spencer hinted as much by teasing: “Two of the games are kind of community-driven games that will end up on other platforms and give us the ability to continue to invest in them. Two of the other games are smaller games that were never really meant to be built as kind of platform exclusives and all the fanfare that goes around that.”
Two titles that won’t be included are Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle – at least not yet. “They are not Starfield or Indiana Jones,” Spencer explained, but in an interview with The Verge he added: “I don’t think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform.” Crystal clear communication from the Xbox leadership team, then.
“These are games that originally launched on Xbox,” Spencer continued to The Verge, when asked if more titles could make the jump to PS5. “They were Xbox-branded games and we want to see what happens, because going and doing the development work to bring them to new platforms is real work. We want to make sure that the return makes sense. We want to make sure the audience that’s there has an appetite, maybe they don’t.”
In other words, if you want more Xbox games on your PS5, perhaps you should put your money where your mouth is and pick up this initial batch of four titles. Spoken like a true salesman, we suppose.
Elsewhere, speaking specifically about why it’s bringing games to PS5, Spencer said it’s all about the “long-term health” of the Xbox brand. “We make every decision with the long-term health of Xbox in mind, which means a growing platform, our games performing, building the best platform for creators, reaching as many players as we can,” he said.
[source news.xbox.com]
