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Spencer says no reason for first-party Xbox games to be platform exclusive

Spencer says no reason for first-party Xbox games to be platform exclusive

The head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has provided more detail about the company's plans when it comes to multiplatform releases. 

Speaking to Dustin Legarieas reported by Eurogamer – the exec said that he didn't want to keep games only in its own ecosystem if there is a solid business case of it being popular elsewhere. 

This follows many of Xbox's first-party titles leaving the Microsoft ecosystem for other hardware, such as Sea of Thieves coming to PlayStation 5. Spencer also said that first-party titles, such as Starfield, would not have an "exclusivity window" moving forward. 

"Our strategy is to allow our games to be available," Spencer said.

"Game Pass is an important component of playing the games on our platform, but to keep games off other platforms? That's not a path for us. It doesn't work for us."

He continued: "What we're doing now we think really enables us to build the best platform for the world's best games. Because the world's biggest games are available in multiple places, and more and more creators are asking us, how do we stay connected when our game might be playable in all these different places, and we want Xbox to be absolutely the platform that enables that.

"We think that makes us unique. Most of the other platforms out there are single platform on single device, whether that's PC, whether that's mobile, whether it's a console.

"And we want Xbox to be a platform that enables creators across any screen that people want to play on."


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Forbes-Calvin is a freelance writer and photographer, mostly operating within the games industry. Over his career, he has written for the likes of MCV, Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, The Observer, VGC and Esquire. That's on top of writing books for Dark Horse on RuneScape, Assassin's Creed, Dead Island 2 and more.