This past week has been a very tumultuous week for Xbox news in general, with much of the fanbase constantly switching from the idea that Xbox is doomed to being incredibly excited for the future. On Thursday is when the much anticipated Xbox podcast detailing a lot of their future business plans aired, but many viewers left with the feeling that nothing was officially confirmed. All we know now is that there will be four Xbox exclusives coming to other platforms with Sea Of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush all but confirmed to be 2 of them. That being said exclusivity has been the talk of the industry for a long time now and this past week has been a huge bench mark for it. Another less talked about moment of the past couple days comes from a Game File interview with Phil Spencer speaking on PlayStation and PC exclusive Helldivers 2 and commenting on how great it is to see such games thrive and continue growing in popularity. But he did have some reservations regarding the title’s exclusivity.
I will say, when I look at a game like Helldivers 2 — and it’s a great game, kudos to the team shipping on PC and PlayStation — I’m not exactly sure who it helps in the industry by not being on Xbox – Phil Spencer Via Game File
Spencer then goes on to say that he understands why PlayStation did what they did as Xbox does the same thing with their titles, but this clearly shows that Phil Spencer is a person who would much rather have console exclusivity be far more limited. It also shows that Xbox might be trying to build more bridges with rival consoles with their 4 rumored titles going multiplatform. This added to a direct quote from Spencer on the aforementioned podcast where he states the following.
I have a fundamental belief that, over the next 5 or 10 years, exclusive games – games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware – are gonna be a smaller and smaller part of the game industry. – Phil Spencer Via Official Xbox Podcast
This to me sounds like it’s the beginning of a new age of the videogame industry with a big hitter like Microsoft attempting to acclimate to a world where exclusive titles still exist slowly but are no longer as warranted as in previous years. Hopefully in a couple of years, although it may be too much to ask, Xbox players will be able to experience The Last Of Us, God Of War, and Marvel’s Spider-Man as companies become more cooperative in the future.