PlayStation and Xbox are both pulling back from multiplatform releases and reemphasizing exclusive games. At the same time, Sony recently dropped Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear successor, Physint, leaving Microsoft to pick up the project. The console warriors might be drawing battle lines, but Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says the publisher's collaborations with PlayStation will continue.
Xbox still has several ongoing projects with PlayStation. Forza Horizon 6 and Fable are both set to come to PS5, and franchises like Call of Duty and Minecraft remain multiplatform affairs. As Sharma tells the New York Times: "Competition and collaboration can coexist."
According to the NYT write-up, Sharma "laughed" at the idea of apologizing to Sony for the whole kerfuffle over Physint which, hey, fair enough. The outlet additionally reports that Xbox's agreement with Kojima was "substantially below" development costs for a AAA game, and includes film and TV rights for the project.
Rumors have been floating around that Kojima was seeking something in the neighborhood of $400 million for Physint, but a new edition of The Game Business suggests that "Xbox is paying far, far less than that number," potentially less than $200 million.
For years, Xbox had been pursuing a multiplatform strategy that ultimately culminated in several major first-party games receiving ports to PS5. That strategy was one of many things that turned around when Sharma took over Xbox leadership from Phil Spencer, but there are still plenty of games under the Xbox banner which are still set to come to PS5.
For its part, PlayStation never embraced multiplatform the way Xbox (briefly) did, though a certain few games – like Bungie's Marathon – were released on the competing console. But Sony's big experiment was on PC, which is a platform it's now pulling back from. Competition and collaboration can, indeed, coexist, but it continues to feel like both concepts are a little one-sided in the modern console war.
Here are the PS5 exclusives and Xbox exclusives you need to know about.
