Xbox’s strategy around releasing its first-party games on competitors’ consoles is evolving. The company says it wants to make its PlayStation 5 release schedule more consistent moving forward.
In a recent interview with GamesRadar+, Xbox Game Studios head Craig Duncan talked about being consistent with first-party game releases on PS5 and other competitor platforms.
While some recent Xbox titles like Fable and Kiln are set to launch on PS5 day one, others, such as Forza Horizon 6, are scheduled first on Xbox and PC before a later PS5 release.
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Balancing Multiplatform Ambitions With Development Realities
Xbox has been quite vocal about making its exclusives available on PS5. Forza Horizon 6 is proof of that, but getting games to release simultaneously across all platforms remains a problem.
Xbox has made strides in getting games released at the same time across all platforms. Titles like The Outer Worlds 2 have already seen simultaneous launches across Xbox, PC, and PS5. But there are still games that have arrived much later on other platforms. Titles such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle arrived on Sony’s console several months after launch. Duncan confronts this issue and talks about improving consistency.
There’s always development realities about when these projects start – how big a team is, and what plans we have at the start of development,” Duncan said. “When a strategy changes, maybe you’ve got a plan that exists with a game, and maybe you can adopt that, maybe you can’t.
Sometimes we are inconsistent. You see some games in one place, some games in multiple places. Just know that we’re going to work on that, and we’re going to try and be more consistent with what we do.
Duncan admitted this has led to understandable frustration and described the feedback as “totally fair,” signaling a willingness to refine the approach.
Duncan mentioned that their ultimate goal is broaden the audience by making these games available to as many players as possible.
But you know, for our game makers, if you’re on the Fable team, you just want as many people who love Fable to appreciate the great work that the team’s doing. That’s always our goal. It’s rarely more complicated than that. It’s like, how can we get this game to as many players as we can?
This signals a positive future for console gamers worldwide. Being able to play any game you want without worrying about console exclusivity should be the ultimate goal.
