Rethinking Videogame Exclusives (Premium)

For most of its history in the videogame industry, Sony has wielded its PlayStation-exclusive games as a cudgel against the competition. But now it’s asking Microsoft, a bit desperately if you ask me, to continue making Activision Blizzard’s games available on PlayStation after its acquisition of the company is complete.

“We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform,” a Sony statement to the Wall Street Journal says.

Of course, Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements. That’s the law. But underlying this statement is a fear for the future, that once those agreements run out, it hopes that Microsoft will continue to make Activision Blizzard titles available on Sony’s platforms. And that Microsoft will make future new titles from Activision Blizzard available too.

I’m siding with Sony on this one: of course, Microsoft should do all those things, perhaps not universally, but as broadly as possible. And the reasoning here is simple: making most/all Activision Blizzard game titles available on every platform that makes sense is the right thing to do for gamers. This is, of course, the entire point of the Xbox business, according to Phil Spencer.

Consider two angles to this thinking.

One, you have gamers who play on one console, but also own a PC or Mac, an iPhone or Android smartphone, and/or a tablet of some kind. Why would Microsoft punish, say, a PlayStation owner because they’ve made that console choice? And making games available on PlayStation makes business sense: Microsoft doesn’t even turn a profit selling consoles. But it can do so by selling software and services. And if it keeps losing money on consoles, which it will, then Microsoft will make more from Activision Blizzard content from customers who don’t buy an Xbox.

(Not everyone thinks this way. The Verge, for example, opined that “it’s easy to imagine a future where Microsoft [makes] any future Call of Duty games go Xbox exclusive. After all, Microsoft isn’t spending $68.7 billion to keep publishing PlayStation games forever.” That is not easy to imagine. In fact, that would be a financial disaster, and a negative for all Call of Duty players.)

Two, consider cross-play. I know that console/PC cross-play is controversial. Right now, in fact, Halo Infinite multiplayer participants on Xbox consoles are complaining that PC gamers are either outright cheating or have some inherent keyboard/mouse advantages that make cross-play unfair to them. But cross-play between consoles makes tons of sense. All players, regardless of which platform they chose, are playing with controllers, and not keyboard and mouse, and the competition is inherently fair. Limiting multiplayer or group play to just a single console (in this case, to not include those on PlayStation) limits the number of available players and makes it worse for those that did choose an Xbox. It’s like punching yourself in the face.

But as a gamer, I’d also like for the industry—Microsoft, Sony, and all other relevant parties—to take this moment to rethink platform exclusives more generally. Here, I know, I will encounter resistance, but that resistance is based on old thinking. Gaming is more than a battle between two types of consoles, and no organization knows that better than Microsoft, which has evolved Xbox into a platform that spans devices of all kinds. The ability to game anywhere, anytime, on any device. With Sony following Microsoft down the cloud gaming rabbit hole, it needs to rethink how it does things too. And that means opening its IP beyond PlayStation.

It’s already doing so in small ways. Last week, for example, Sony released its iconic title God of War on the PC, and reviewers immediately praised it as “the definitive edition” of the former PlayStation exclusive. It’s also Sony’s most successful PC title of all time; it took just one day to achieve that milestone, an indication of how much non-Sony hardware customers are interested in its catalog. (Previous Sony ports to PC include Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn.) This, plus the success of Microsoft’s cross-platform push, should be all the nudge it needs to wake up and do the right thing.

Overall, this isn’t just about Sony or first-party games. It’s about gaming. And making as many games as possible available to as many gamers as possible makes sense for everyone: console makers, game publishers, and gamers. Everyone.

I know. Not everyone will agree with this egalitarian approach. But it’s the dawn of a new era. And it’s time for some new thinking.