Xbox is a very confusing company right now. We don't know what its future plans are, and judging by its most recent marketing campaigns and price hikes, you'd be forgiven for thinking you don't know either. Despite this, we've heard Xbox plans to release a next-gen system alongside the PlayStation 6 (it could cost an arm and a leg), and it seems determined to make all its long-running exclusives playable on as many platforms as possible.
Xbox's approach to exclusivity has been criticized by both developers and fans over the past year, with series like Forza Horizon, Gears of War, and possibly Halo debuting on PlayStation. This is a strategy that has paid off for Xbox, its games are regularly becoming bestsellers on PS5, but we still don't know what Xbox's vision of exclusivity is, and what its plans are moving forward.
Thankfully, a recent interview with Xbox president Sarah Bond has given us more insight into some of the thinking going on at the company, and if you're still hoping that Xbox might release some high-quality exclusives in the future, I've got some bad news for you.
Xbox thinks exclusives are “ancient” thanks to Fortnite and Roblox
“We're actually seeing people evolve earlier than that,” says Bond. “The biggest games in the world are available everywhere. You look at Call of Duty, you look at Minecraft, you look at Fortnite, you look at Roblox — that's really what drives community in gaming. It's where people gather, they have experiences, and the idea of locking that to one store or one device is antiquated for most people.”
This is a bit of a strange argument, especially when you have never had the role of exclusive to actually gather millions of players. PlayStation and Nintendo have used exclusives for years to sell their consoles, such as games like Astro Bot and Donkey Kong Bananza that showcase the technology and types of experiences you can get on their systems and not others.
Xbox owns Call of Duty and MInecraft, and making them widely available on all platforms makes a lot of sense, but abandoning exclusives like Halo and Gears of War – which aren't really going to set the world on fire – devalues the platform and makes it less attractive. If you can buy Xbox games no one will buy Xbox and PlayStation Exclusive on PlayStation.
- brand
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Microsoft
- Original release date
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November 10, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499
- operating system
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Proprietary (Windows based)
- processor
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Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz
- resolve
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720p – 4K UHD
