Xbox is a very confusing company right now. We have no idea what its future plans are, and judging from its most recent marketing campaigns and price hikes, you would be forgiven for thinking that it doesn’t know either. Despite this, we’ve been assured that Xbox plans on releasing a next-gen system alongside the PlayStation 6 (even if it might cost an arm and a leg), and that it seems to be determined to make all of its longtime 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 making their debuts on PlayStation. It’s a strategy that’s kind of paid off for Xbox, with its games regularly becoming bestsellers on PS5, but we still don’t really know what Xbox’s attitude is to exclusivity, and what its plans are going forward.
Thankfully, a recent interview with Xbox president Sarah Bond has given us further insight into some of the thinking going on at the company right now, and if you were still holding out hope that Xbox might somehow release some high-quality exclusives in the future, I’ve got some bad news for you.
Xbox Thinks Exclusives Are “Antiquated” Thanks To Fortnite And Roblox
“We’re really seeing people evolve way past 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 actually what’s really driving community in gaming. That’s where people gather, they have experiences, and the idea of locking it to one store or one device is antiquated for most people.”
It’s a bit of an odd argument, especially when you consider the role of the exclusive has never really been to gather millions upon millions of players. PlayStation and Nintendo have used exclusives over the years to sell their consoles, such as games like Astro Bot and Donkey Kong Bananza that show off the tech and type of experiences that you can have on their systems and no others.
Xbox owns Call of Duty and MInecraft, and making them widely available on all platforms just makes a lot of sense, but giving up exclusives like Halo and Gears of War — which are never really going to set the world on fire — kind of devalues the platform and makes it less attractive. Nobody is going to buy an Xbox if you can buy Xbox games and PlayStation exclusives on a 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
- Resolution
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720p – 4K UHD
