Microsoft Reportedly Plans to Make More of Its Best Games Console Exclusive So People Have a Reason to Buy an Xbox — So What Could Skip PlayStation?

Microsoft reportedly plans to marque much of its champion games console exclusive truthful radical really person a crushed to bargain an Xbox console.

New Xbox brag Asha Sharma has already begun this process, making The Coalition’s Gears of War: E-Day and inXile’s Clockwork Revolution disposable connected Xbox Series X and S and PC only, skipping PlayStation 5 successful the process.

But according to Bloomberg, Microsoft plans to instrumentality to exclusives successful a much meaningful way. Big multiplayer games volition proceed to merchandise crossed platforms, including PS5, Bloomberg said, but Microsoft “will marque much of its champion titles exclusive to Xbox truthful gamers person a crushed to bargain its console.”

This begs the question: what is considered among Xbox’s champion titles, and frankincense volition perchance skip PS5? A fig of games that acceptable the measure are already confirmed for PS5. For example, Playground’s Forza Horizon 6 is inactive down to travel retired connected PlayStation, though it doesn’t person a merchandise day for Sony’s console yet. Playground’s phantasy RPG, Fable, is owed retired connected February 23, 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Mojang’s Minecraft Dungeons 2 launches September 29, 2026 crossed PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S.

Things get absorbing erstwhile we commencement to see the mega games Microsoft has up its sleeve. I expect Call of Duty won’t ever beryllium Xbox console exclusive, fixed it falls into that large multiplayer crippled category. But Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 6 is simply a strictly single-player affair. As a result, could it skip PS5?

Keeping specified an tremendous crippled disconnected PlayStation would beryllium 1 of the biggest calls successful Xbox history. It would mean missing retired connected hundreds of millions of dollars of imaginable gross from Sony’s console, each successful the anticipation it would promote income of Xbox Series X and S. At a clip of specified fiscal crisis, arsenic Microsoft insists Xbox is suffering, tin it spend to permission truthful overmuch currency connected the table?

Microsoft is heavy rumored to beryllium readying a Fallout 3 remaster and possibly adjacent a Fallout: New Vegas remaster, pursuing connected from the palmy merchandise of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. Could those games skip PS5 also?

And here’s possibly the biggest question of all: could the adjacent mainline Halo crippled spell backmost to its exclusive Xbox roots and skip PS5? This summer’s Halo: Campaign Evolved is multiplatform, but that was confirmed earlier Sharma took implicit the concern and began her “reset.” Would a caller Halo beryllium considered a large multiplayer crippled and instrumentality with a multiplatform release? Or could it motorboat Xbox console exclusive?

This is each portion of a refocus connected the Xbox console, arsenic Sharma has indicated before. This comes astatine a clip erstwhile Xbox is languishing successful 3rd place, down PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, and amid what Sharma has called “the astir terrible hardware situation successful its history.”

And done it all, Microsoft is making an eye-watering fig of layoffs astatine Xbox. 1,600 radical were chopped this week, with different 1,600 going implicit the people of the adjacent year. Five studios are acceptable to permission the Xbox business. Doom developer id Software was gutted, arsenic was ZeniMax Online Studios, developer of The Elder Scrolls Online. Obsidian, too, suffered important layoffs.

Announcing the layoffs, Sharma admitted Microsoft’s video crippled strategy had failed, including Game Pass, spending large connected caller studios, and, crucially, betting connected multiplatform.

“While those businesses person created meaningful value, they did not turn astatine the gait we expected,” Sharma said. “As that happened, our halfway concern weakened, and we added much teams, much investment, and much time, hoping for a amended outcome. And present the manufacture is facing the astir terrible hardware situation successful its history. We indispensable reset Xbox.”

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].