The official launch hasn’t arrived yet, but Sea of Thieves already seems to be a success on PS5 and this confirms the goodness of the Xbox strategy: how will it continue?
Sea of Thieves on PS5 isn’t out yet, but based on the reception given to the beta it seems that Rare’s title is destined to be a great success on the Sony console too. This confirms the validity of the cross-platform Xbox strategy , but which games will be chosen to continue?
As explained by Phil Spencer during the event on the future of Xbox , the four first party titles selected so far to land on PlayStation and Nintendo systems (in this case the aforementioned Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Pentiment and Hi-Fi RUSH) were the the result of very precise reasoning .
In fact, the idea was to only give up exclusives that had already given what they could give on Xbox . In the case of Sea of Thieves, for example, we are talking about a live service that has reached its eleventh season, therefore widely consolidated and capable of totaling over 35 million players within the Microsoft ecosystem.
Grounded has also come a long way , first in early access and then in full version from September 2022, with a final update coming soon , while Pentiment and Hi-Fi RUSH, good single player experiences, have done their job over the course of a few months.
What will be the criteria for the next games?
In light of the concepts expressed so far by the Xbox management, the rules that will determine which will be the next games arriving on PS5 and Nintendo systems revolve mostly around chronological issues: if a title has already been released for some time and there is no prospect of a further growth, is the ideal candidate for this strategy.
Now, it is clear that Pentiment and Hi-Fi RUSH are excellent products, but we imagine that Microsoft’s aim is also and above all to make money by taking advantage of its currently being a gigantic publisher, and in this regard it is inevitable that it will focus on broader experiences .
One name above all: Starfield . The arrival of the Bethesda sci-fi RPG on PS5 was practically taken for granted when we were still in the rumor phase, then Phil Spencer put an end to the discussion by announcing the four games mentioned above but did not completely rule out definitive conversion for the Sony console.
Just as he did not rule out the possible publication of Indiana Jones and the Ancient Circle on PlayStation 5 , another title with enormous potential which, however, in this case, could transform into a multiplatform project immediately rather than considering this possibility all the time. ‘roughly a year after its debut on PC and Xbox.
And if all these maneuvers are the success we imagine, at a certain point it will be inevitable to also consider the possibility of bringing the great classic Xbox franchises to other platforms . At that point, however, will there still be a Microsoft platform to protect? Will you choose to purchase it solely to take advantage of the undoubted convenience of Game Pass? What do you think? Let’s talk about.