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During today's highly anticipated Xbox Podcast, Microsoft confirmed that while four Xbox games are going to other platforms, big titles like Starfield and Indiana Jones are remaining exclusive for now. Nevertheless, Xbox boss Phil Spencer believes that exclusive games are going to become much less important in the industry over the next decade.
"The fundamental decision driver for any decision that we make, anything we're going to talk about today, is the long-term health of Xbox - that we're running a growing platform that is reaching more players, that our games are having as much success as possible," Spencer said.
"I do have a fundamental belief that over the next 5 or 10 years, exclusive games, games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware, are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry. And that's not some great insight, because if you look at the last 10 years and what the biggest games are today, it's a natural place - whether it's one console in PC, multiple consoles, mobile, console, and PC - you see big games landing on multiple platforms. And we want to be a great platform for creators that are trying to realize that potential."
Later in the podcast, Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty cites Roblox and Fortnite as he notes that some games "could actually be bigger than any one platform" - hence Microsoft's decision to take some of its live-service titles (the specifics of which haven't been announced yet) multiplatform. That also broadly seems to indicate where Xbox sees the industry moving, with major platforms serving essentially as access points for a variety of multiplatform games.
Yet Xbox itself will remain a platform. During the podcast, we got assurances that "hardware is a critical component" of the Xbox business, and an early tease for a massive "technical leap" in whatever the next Xbox console ends up being.
There are still tons of greats among the best Xbox exclusives.
