Microsoft Confirms Four Xbox-Exclusive Games Are Coming to Other Consoles

Microsoft has finally delivered its much-anticipated Xbox business update and confirmed that four unnamed Xbox exclusive games will be coming to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. Microsoft chose an interesting format to deliver the news with a pre-recorded roundtable featuring Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, Xbox President Sarah Bond, and Head of Xbox Games Studios Matt Booty.

“We’re going to take four games to the other consoles, just four games, not a change to our kind of fundamental exclusive strategy. We’re making these decisions for specific reasons,” Spencer said today, adding that what really matters for the Xbox team is “the long-term health of Xbox.”

While Spencer declined to reveal the names of these games, the exec said that there will be two community-driven games, and two smaller ones. The CEO of Microsoft Gaming also explicitly said that Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are not on this initial list. According to The Verge citing sources familiar with Microsoft plans, the two Xbox games coming first to other consoles are Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment, and they will be followed by Sea of Thieves and Grounded.

Spencer emphasized that the Xbox team is doing this to support the growth of new franchises that they want to continue to invest in and that the Xbox team will be learning from that experiment. “When we don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business using what other platforms have to help us with that, we’re going to do that,” Spencer said.

In the future, Microsoft will continue to invest in Xbox-exclusive games, even though the company is aware that it may not always make financial sense in the long run. “There’s really no fundamental change to how we think about exclusivity,” Spencer explained today. However, the exec also believes that “over the next five or ten years, exclusive games, games that are exclusive to one piece of hardware are going to be a smaller and smaller part of the industry.”

If many people probably expected that Microsoft would also announce some changes to its Game Pass subscription service today, that didn’t happen. First of all, Matt Booty, the head of Xbox Games Studios confirmed that all first-party games will continue to launch on Game Pass on day one. Xbox President Sarah Bond also announced that Diablo IV will be the first Activision Blizzard game to come to Game Pass on March 28, with more to follow.

We also learned today that the number of Game Pass subscribers has now crossed 34 million, up from 25 million in January 2022. Microsoft told The Verge that this number also includes Game Pass Core (previously Xbox Live Gold) subscribers, so that 36% growth in the number of Game Pass subscribers isn’t entirely reflective of the growth of Xbox Game Pass for Console, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Microsoft also confirmed today that Game Pass is not coming to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. However, the company still aims to reach as many gamers as possible on PC, mobile, the cloud, and other consoles.

Last but not least, Sarah Bond announced today that new Xbox hardware will be coming this holiday season. This likely means refreshed current-gen consoles and the new controller that leaked last year. Bond, who is now overseeing Xbox hardware, also started teasing what to expect from the next generation of Xbox consoles.

“There’s some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we’re going to share this holiday, and we’re also investing in the next-generation roadmap. And what we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap we’ve ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they’re building,” Bond said today.

Update February 16 5:40 ET: I’ve updated the post to clarify that the 34 million number of Game Pass subscribers also includes Game Pass Core (previously Xbox Libe Gold), and that the four unnamed Xbox games coming to other consoles won’t include Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.