Xbox’s New Multiplatform Strategy Receives Praise From Former PlayStation Execs: “Putting Amazing Content On More Platforms, Who’s The Victim?”
Former PlayStation executives Adam Boyes and Shawn Layden have shared insights into Microsoft’s new multi-platform gaming strategy, which involves releasing formerly Xbox exclusive games like Forza Horizon 5 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on other platforms like PlayStation 5.
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Tango Gameworks’ timed exclusive release of Ghostwire: Tokyo to PC and PS5 back in March of 2021 raised questions about Microsoft’s Xbox exclusive release strategy. After all, by then Zenimax, Tango Gameworks’ parent company, had been officially acquired by the American tech giant a week prior. Microsoft was evidently not prepared to break an exclusive contract for the sake of obtaining an exclusive Xbox release. Besides, Xbox had already been dabbling with multi-platform releases for a number of years with games like Gears of War 4 in 2016 or all the way back in 2003 with ports of Halo: Combat Evolved to Windows and Mac OS X.
Since then, and with the massive popularity of Xbox Game Pass on Windows, gamers have found it easy to play their favorite Xbox games on PC. Considering that Microsoft owns the Windows operating system, it is easy to rationalize the semi-exclusiveness in their release strategy. On the other hand, Tango Gameworks’ following game, Hi-Fi Rush, eventually landed on Sony’s hardware in March of 2024 after its initial, and supposedly exclusive, launch. The game’s short-lived exclusivity was followed by Obsidian’s Grounded and Rare’s Sea of Thieves on the PS5 in April of the same year.
Xbox themselves has also become aware of this trend, as not only did last year see division boss Phil Spencer confirm that there are “no red lines” regarding Xbox games on other platforms or vice versa, but he further declared just a few days ago that “it doesn’t really benefit people to gatekeep games”.
“Allow people to play games – that’s a good thing, not a bad thing for this industry and especially in an industry that we all see is struggling,” Spencer opined to Xbox Era on February 15th. “Both game costs are growing, so keeping gate like restricting where those games can be played is not helping the games themselves. And I think we should optimise for the best games that we can have in this industry.”
To this end, this apparent shift in the company’s operations has drawn praise from two former PlayStation executives, both of whom see the development as a generally positive one for both players and the overall industry.
During a recent interview with Gamertag Radio, former Playstation executive Adam Boyes remarked that not only was the move a positive one, but that those who disagreed with it were simply playing a game of tribalism.
“I understand why traditionalists are looking at that being like, ‘I don’t like change! I want it to only be where I want it to be!’” said Boyes. “And that’s the bit where my logic gap starts to break.”
“Because when Phil [Spencer] and his team are putting amazing content on more platforms, who’s the victim?” he added. “I ask a lot of people, ‘who’s the victim?’ And there aren’t any, except for people who are like, ‘I only want it where I bought it, and that’s what I expect!’”
Similar sentiments are shared by former Playstation chairman Shawn Layden, who compared this potential change to SEGA’s metamorphosis into a successful software company.
“Multiplatform is a strategy, particularly in a world where the cost of development is increasing so dramatically,” opined Hayden while making a recent appearance on the Kiwi Talkz YouTube show. “What does it do to their brand? It makes the conversation harder to create the FOMO [Fear of Missing Out] you’re trying to do that by bringing everyone to your platform by saying, ‘If you’re not here you’re missing out,’ but if it’s available on all platforms, that’s one of your marketing tactics you can’t use.”
“We’ve seen it before,” he recalled. “I was in the business when Sega brought their Dreamcast titles to PS2, in time then Sega became a software-only company, and have had a great transformation in that sense. So it does have historical precedence.”
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As the gaming industry evolves, Microsoft’s multi-platform strategy signals a potential transformation of Xbox from a hardware-centric platform to a more fluid gaming brand. The growing pains that gamers will have to suffer during the potential transition into a world where Xbox is no longer a plastic box anymore may be harsh, but industry veterans like Adam Boyes and Shawn Layden suggest this shift is both strategic and potentially necessary.
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