Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, and Pentiment Are Headed to Other Consoles

Microsoft has officially revealed today the four Xbox-exclusive games that it previously said were coming soon to PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. The list includes Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, and Pentiment, though not all of them will be coming to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.

Sea of Thieves: The popular pirate game released on Xbox on PC back in 2018 will be released on PlayStation 5 on April 30, with pre-orders opening tomorrow, February 22. Microsoft said the game already has a community of 35 million players across Xbox and PC, and the PlayStation 5 version will support cross-play with these other platforms.

Grounded: The co-op survival game was originally released in 2020 on Xbox and PC, and it will be coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch on April 16 with full cross-play support.

Pentiment: The 2022 narrative adventure game from Obisidan Entertainment is coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch on February 22.

Hi-Fi RUSH: The 2023 rhythm-based action game from Tango Gameworks is coming to PlayStation 5 on March 19, with pre-orders opening today, February 21.

“These titles join franchises like Minecraft, Call of Duty, Overwatch and Diablo – which already reach players and fans on multiple platforms – and we’re excited for more players to experience these worlds and stories on more platforms,” said Matt Booty, President, Game Content & Studios.

While Microsoft was already a big third-party publisher with the very popular franchises Booty mentioned, Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming made it clear last week that the company’s gaming division was looking for new growth opportunities. “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,” the exec said in a special edition of the Xbox podcast.

While Spencer also said that bringing these four games to Sony and Nintendo consoles was “not a change to our kind of fundamental exclusive strategy,” it will be interesting to see if the Xbox team will stop there. It will all depend on the result of this experiment, but there’s likely an audience for more established Xbox franchises on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. However, whether Microsoft can give up on exclusive games without making Xbox consoles less attractive remains to be seen.