When it comes to the policy behind first-party studios, Microsoft’s vision has never been as strict as that of Sony. Since last year, Microsoft has acquired a bunch of new studios in order to expand its first-party developers, but still they are making multi-platform games instead of being strictly exclusive to Xbox and Windows 10. Xbox Game Studios boss Matt Booty says the policy wouldn’t necessarily change in the future.
Speaking to Game Informer, Matt Booty said it depends on the franchise and its structure to launch it only for Xbox family or choose a greater audience all around the world for it. He believes that franchises like Halo, Forza and Sea of Thieves have been made only for Xbox family and will be supported well enough that they don’t need to be published on rival platforms. However, some other games might need to have a bigger community, and this where they will be multi-platform. Booty says:
Yeah, I think we would. I think that the question is less binary about, ‘should it be on Switch, should it be on PlayStation?’ and more, ‘does it make sense for the franchise?’
In other words, is it a kind of game where it would benefit from the network effect of being on a bunch of different platforms, or is it a game where we can best support it by putting resources and making sure that our platforms, things like xCloud and Game Pass and Xbox Live, are really leaning in to support the game?
Currently, The Outer Worlds, Wasteland 3 and Psychonauts 2 all will be launched as multi-platform games despite being developed at Microsoft’s first-party studios.
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Shadow of the Erdtree will launch on June 21
This was originally a requirement when the game first launched.