To say Xbox (sorry I won’t be saying XBOX) and the topic of exclusivity is dominating social media these days would be an understatement. Whether it’s good or bad news, Xbox has everyone’s attention. After this year’s Xbox Showcase, things are even more murky. So what do we know and what do I think is the plan moving forward? Let’s discuss.

What we know so far is, well complicated. At the Xbox Showcase, Xbox proclaimed that both Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be full on console exclusives. Not timed exclusives either; they say the 2 games will never come to PlayStation. I won’t blame you if you are skeptical on that. We’ve heard it before with games like Starfield, and we never thought Halo would be on a PlayStation console. 

Of course, that was an old regime with Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond and now we have Asha Sharma, Matt Booty and Matthew Ball at the helm. They’ve all boldly claimed that we are seeing “the Return of Xbox.” But while many cheered Gears of War and Clockwork Revolution being exclusive, many wondered why games like State of Decay 3, Senua, Fable and more are still going to rival platforms.

Confusing Messaging Continues

Both Booty and Ball commented on this in interviews to try to explain their strategy. I’d say Ball did a better job of trying to explain things so I’ll use his quotes here.

In an interview with Games Industry Ball said “players can expect a reliable pipeline that validates their historical investment in the Xbox platform, keeps them as Xbox players going forward and everyone in the industry understands that exclusives are important to the growth and branding of that platform.”

“We’ve also said publicly that there’s a series of titles – predominantly those that are designed for large live service multiplayer platforms, CoD being the biggest – are going to remain non-exclusive. We have a third bucket of titles, those titles that we have previously announced or previously committed with our partners, with players, with teams, that we’ve decided to maintain those commitments.”

On the surface, it makes sense. Games like Call of Duty, Minecraft and other major live service games should remain multiplatform no matter what. They are too big and while they may be big console sellers if they did become exclusive, I don’t think they’d make enough money back to cut billions of dollars in revenue from sales.

Also keeping the agreements already in place for games they signed off on going elsewhere makes sense. They did this when they purchased all these studios and publishers, and pulling the plug last minute might do more harm than good. 

The only problem with that is they seemingly pulled the plug on Gears of War: E-Day at the last minute. The game had been rated for PlayStation and there was even a trailer that had to be pulled from Youtube because it had PlayStation branding on it. Clearly the game was going to come to PlayStation and they pulled it. So why was that agreement not agreed too?

Things get even more puzzling when it comes to games like Senua, Spyro and State of Decay 3. They were never announced as coming to PlayStation, heck Senua and Spyro weren’t even announced until Sunday. Why didn’t they get treated like Clockwork Revolution, which also had no prior commitments to PlayStation, at least publicly. 

It’s possible they did have agreements already in place. State of Decay 3 also technically fits the live service billing, though I’d argue a co-op campaign isn’t really a live service. Also Booty suggested that multiplayer games will stay multiplatform, but again Gears of War has a huge multiplayer aspect to it, yet they decided to pull it. 

I’ve also heard people say Senua and Spyro are going to PlayStation because they have deep roots on PlayStation. Fair, but aren’t those then exactly the types of games that could make a PlayStation player buy an Xbox if that is the goal? I know it’s an extreme example, but if tomorrow Microsoft bought Naughty Dog and announced Uncharted 5 as an Xbox exclusive, wouldn’t that make PlayStation gamers think about an Xbox?

So as of right now were essentially back to a “case by case” basis when it comes to Xbox exclusives, and that has many fans frustrated. They want to be excited by exclusives coming back, but don’t know when a game will be exclusive. A game being exclusive or not has no bearing on my enjoyment of it, so if they kept things multiplatform, I wouldn’t care, but a true direction would be nice. 

Setting Things Up To Go All In On Project Helix?

Now as for what I think is actually going to happen based on a gut feeling and trying to read between the lines is that they are doing everything they can to appease current Xbox players and keep the good will.

Ball has said that there is more demand for Xbox Series consoles than they can produce. With memory prices through the roof, it makes sense that Xbox isn’t really focused on producing many Xbox Series consoles. This generation appears almost done for them. They are already talking next generation with Project Helix.

So why go back to everything exclusive right now? Get PlayStation players interested in Forza and Halo and Fable and on and on. Sell to those customers and get that software money. Fulfill all those agreements and promises and then go into next generation with nothing but exclusives.

If the goal is to bring the return of Xbox and focus on the hardware again, it’s really the only option for them in my opinion. They need clear communication on what is going to be exclusive, no more case by case. And they cannot be one foot in one foot out. If you are focusing on the hardware go all in and do everything you can to make it work. If your focus is sell software, just go all in on multiplat.

Skeptical That Exclusives Will Work?

Of course there are people that think they won’t go back to exclusives, and if they do it won’t matter. Xbox had exclusives through the Xbox One and most of the Xbox Series S/X generations and it didn’t matter.

That’s a valid statement, but the major difference now is that all the new studios and publishers Microsoft has purchased are finally firing on all cylinders. When they first made the decision to go multiplat I said they should at least wait to give all their new studios a chance to put games out and turn things around.

The Xbox One and early Xbox Series S/X generation just didn’t have a steady flow of games that people wanted, and the ones they did have didn’t live up to expectations. It’s hard to sell a console with just a Halo 5 or Gears 5. But a complete lineup with multiple major releases like Fable, Clockwork Revolution, Forza Horizon 6, Gears Of War: E-Day, State of Decay 3 and more? That’s something you can sell.

Ultimately it might not matter. It’s an uphill battle to get people to come over to Xbox even with a top tier lineup. But if that is the goal, they have to do everything they can to try and that means all in on exclusives, it just might take some time to get there.