Multiplatform Microsoft and a very different future for consoles | This Week in Business

16.02.2024 - 17:23 / gamesindustry.biz / Sony

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Microsoft dropped a bombshell yesterday, confirming recent reports that it would be going multiplatform, bringing a quartet of first-party games to rival consoles in the near future.

It didn't say which four games those would be, but it ruled out Starfield and Indiana Jones, which had been named in those unconfirmed reports. Between what was revealed and what was reported, it seems likely we're looking at Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Grounded.

Naturally, everyone responded to this news in a level-headed and emotionally balanced way, because this industry has always conducted itself with the utmost responsibility in ensuring that its customers' relationship with the brands and companies they support is at its heart a healthy one.

Or, you know, maybe the opposite of all that happened.

Regardless, it's a Big Deal, because now we're going to have one platform holder making games for a platform owned by a competitor! This NEVER happens.

I mean, we knew it would be happening, because Microsoft signed those deals to bring Call of Duty to a bunch of places (namely PlayStation, Steam and Nintendo consoles) so the Activision Blizzard acquisition could go through. And it's not like they were suddenly going to pull Diablo 4 off PS5 or Overwatch 2 off Switch.

And sure, Microsoft published Psychonauts 2 and Pillars of Eternity and Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop on Sony's platforms (with timed exclusivity in the latter two cases, even), but those don't count because they were already in the works when Microsoft acquired the developers of those games.

And yeah, Microsoft already brought one of its exclusives to rival platforms when it published Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition on Switch when it absolutely did not have to. (Cuphead and Ori and the Will o' the Wisps were technically published on Switch by Studio MDHR and iam8bit, respectively, and I can't imagine those ports happening without Microsoft's blessing.)

And I grant you, Minecraft is already on everything.

But games like Minecraft and Call of Duty are just so massive you'd lose money keeping them exclusive so it makes no sense to limit them to one platform!

And games like Ori and Cuphead are so small they won't move the needle so it makes no sense to limit them to one platform!

That's actually Microsoft's on-the-record position on this, too. During the Activision Blizzard acquisition process, Microsoft revealed to UK regulators that the only games worth keeping exclusive are games like... Redfall?

And