After a whirlwind 48 hours in which reports emerged that Microsoft was planning to bring big Xbox games like Starfield, Indiana Jones and even Gears of War to its rival PlayStation, Microsoft has now responded. But it’s in a way that has satisfied no one, albeit what it doesn’t say has seemingly provided some answers in and of itself.
Phil Spencer posted on Twitter Monday afternoon, promising a “business update event” at some unspecified point next week to clarify what was going on:
Though notably, there are no denials of anything in there, which implies that the gist of these rumors, that Microsoft is bringing some of its former exclusives to PlayStation or even Nintendo Switch, is happening.
Through datamining, the only game that has been confirmed as being on “the list” is Hi-Fi Rush, given cosmetics in that game, but it’s unclear whether the highest profile games being talked about will be given over to Sony or not. The rumors are often that Microsoft is “considering” each game, but it’s unclear how they are concocting a final list. Some of these games were their biggest of last year (Hi-Fi, Starfield), some are years old but Xbox icons (Gears of War), and others aren’t even out yet (Indiana Jones) raising questions about how this is all going to work.
The response to these reports has been generally negative, with many analysts or journalists perhaps seeing what Microsoft is trying to do, but acknowledging the myriad downsides this decision could bring. The Xbox fanbase, meanwhile, is positively furious. As one of the most voracious collection of fans in gaming, they are taking this as a betrayal by Microsoft which would effectively end the loyal Xbox community as they know it, and they believe their investment in Xbox hardware and digital libraries has been unwarranted if now big Xbox exclusives will be accessible on PlayStation, meaning they could have just bought that system and amassed games on that ecosystem in the first place.
As for Microsoft’s slow/muted response to all this so far, as mad as people may be and as wild as these rumors are, it’s a $3 trillion company so they’re not going to rush out a blog post about what may be their biggest change to the Xbox brand since its inception. A day and time next week would have been nice, however, indicating some sort of scrambling may be going on. There are also theories that these reports have been internally leaked by those at Microsoft pushing back against that decision, but that has not been confirmed.
I saw someone say that Spencer promising a “business update event” feels like he’s calling fans to HR to fire them. The tone is certainly…a bit dark, but we’ll see where all this leads next week, and what the fallout may be after that.
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