In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has publicly addressed Xbox’s massive global reach as a publisher. Sharma hinted that a shift toward platform-locked exclusive titles could be the next step with the current multi-platform era competition.
The console war might not be over just yet, while Sony continues to keep its titles exclusive to PlayStation, Microsoft appears ready to jump back into the console wars. As a result, PlayStation 5 owners might soon be locked out of franchises like Gears of War.
Xbox Wants Exclusives Back: The Console War Continues
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Asha Sharma stated that Xbox is trying to balance being a successful video game publisher while also building its own platform. This model itself isn’t new, but it’s been a while since they’ve deviated from it.
“Look, we’re the number two publisher in the world, and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play,” said Asha Sharma. “At the same time, we’re increasingly becoming a platform, and in order to become a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so we’re looking at that very closely. I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title, on how we want to think about it, and learn from some similar cases in the industry, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Since Asha Sharma took over as CEO of Xbox, she has ushered in changes to elevate the company and its brand. Although many of the things featured in Xbox’s upcoming showcase have been in the works long before Sharma assumed office, it will be her first move at defining exclusive titles to support her vision.
The Rise And Fall Of Platform Exclusivity
During the PlayStation 4 era, Sony really made a name for itself through masterpieces like God of War, Spider-Man, and the Uncharted series. At the same time, Nintendo locked down its own section of the market, with its unique ecosystem and legendary franchises like Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda.
While Xbox had its fair share of cinematic exclusives like the Halo and Gears of War series, it shifted toward an alternative business model with Xbox Game Pass and a multi-platform availability approach.
Here, instead of forcing players to buy Xbox hardware, they aimed to get players into the Xbox ecosystem on PC, mobile, and eventually rival consoles. By doing so, titles like Forza Horizon 5 and Bethesda’s Indiana Jones made their way to PlayStation, leading many to believe that Xbox had fully abandoned traditional console exclusives and had become purely a third-party software publisher. However, Sony still kept its games strictly as exclusives and benefited from this exclusivity.
But now it sounds like, moving forward, Xbox may continue to evaluate games based on the genre and franchise they belong to. For example, something like a Call of Duty game would exist on all platforms, but titles like Halo would remain exclusive to Xbox.
This new stance, as Asha Sharma mentioned in the interview, could change the release course of other titles set for the PlayStation 5. For example, Forza Horizon 6, which is listed as “coming soon” at the moment, could avoid the PS entirely.
It’s hard to comment on what the future holds because Sharma hasn’t clearly outlined anything yet. However, the fact that the company is back to considering platform exclusives means PlayStation owners could be deprived of many Xbox-owned titles in the near future.
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