Earlier this week, NatetheHate dropped a little rumour he’s been hearing, and it’s got Xbox fans, console warriors and everyone in between caught in a furious debate. If you missed out on what that rumour was, it’s this: Microsoft are planning on releasing a critically acclaimed 1st Party title on a competitors platform.

“The title I am referring to was met with high critical acclaim, fans loved it. It was in the GOTY conversation for the year it released…When the announcement comes, it’s going to be met with a lot of excitement, because this is a quality game, and this is a smart move for Microsoft. “

NatetheHate (YouTube)

He then went on to rightly acknowledge, that it’s quite likely that “Xbox fans and hardcore loyalists are going to be hellbent against it”. Well, judging by the number of virtual pitchforks and the console war-esque posts raging across twitter and indeed, our own forums, that is definitely the case. It’s worth mentioning that none of this is announced, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s go live in the world where this is true.

If you’ve been playing on video game consoles for any period of time, there’s pretty much a golden and well understood rule when it comes to exclusives:

If you are a 1st party team, then your job and indeed, raison d’être is to make compelling, exclusive software for your platform.

The debate is now focused on several core issues. Firstly – which game? Many folks are pointing to the excellent Hi-Fi Rush, which released via a surprise shadowdrop at the Xbox Developer_Direct in January of 2023. This was backed up Resetera user lolololailo, who has shared correct information regarding Persona and developers ATLUS previously.

As Xbox fans are now quite rightly asking, why make exclusives or have an Xbox console at all, if you’re going to just “give” 1st Party releases to other players who aren’t invested in the Xbox ecosystem? While I deplore the absolute “dooming” that many seem to indulge in with wanton abandon when rumours like this surface, I do think it’s a very fair question.

Xbox Fans have been incredibly loyal…

It’s no secret that the Xbox platform, specifically last generation, had a very, very rough go of things. The poor messaging surrounding the Xbox One, the lack of 1st party teams and compelling exclusives to play, and a reduction in 3rd party support put the entire Xbox brand at the risk of being closed at one point in time, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella questioning it’s very existence.

Phil Spencer, who enjoys a unique relationship with fans when it comes to big gaming executives, is often given the lions share of the credit for bringing the brand back from the brink, and getting it to where it is today – earning back the ‘power crown’ with “the world’s most powerful console”, building a pro-consumer, feature-rich ecosystem that stretches across PC, Console and cloud and a huge network of 1st party teams that dwarfs every competitor and then some, especially following the successful acquisition of ActivisionBlizzard earlier this year. It’s one hell of a turnaround.

…and they expect that loyalty to be rewarded

The relationship Xbox enjoys with its ardent fanbase is often a strength, but at times like this, it can also be a big problem. Fans of the platform have stuck by Xbox through all those bad times, and have been incredibly patient while Microsoft and Xbox got all their ducks in a row. The general attitude towards any exclusive games on Xbox is one of ownership – and when rumours surface of great games going to a competitor, many Xbox fans are left scratching their heads. This wasn’t part of the deal!

Do Exclusives matter?

From a pure business standpoint, there’s multiple arguments one can make when it comes to exclusive software. As evidenced by the recent Insomnihack, or by the regular release of “most played” metrics, it’s very clear that 3rd party games and franchises form the lion’s share of game time for gamers on all platforms, with long-running titles like Fortnite, FIFA, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto V leading the pack across pretty much ALL regions.

And yet, exclusive software is often the reason to invest in an ecosystem – look at the hard work Sony did with PlayStation 3 towards the end of its life to win fans back with compelling, critically acclaimed games and tell me it doesn’t matter. It earned PlayStation a cache of goodwill and credit, and they continued that journey with PlayStation 4, while Microsoft completely dropped the ball in some regards and forgot who their audience was.

Since console wars begun, rival platforms have used exclusive software to leverage their product and in turn, entice gamers to spend time in their playground. And the real argument being made is – if exclusives no longer “matter”, why have your own playground to begin with? You can release your games across all playgrounds, make more money, and enjoy being a very successful publisher of great content.

Be Transparent

We’ve been here before with Microsoft. In 2016, the mandate began to settle in that Xbox was changing how they positioned their platform, moving to a world where all 1st Party titles would release day and date on PC as well as Xbox consoles, and brought in great initiatives like Play Anywhere. I mentioned earlier about Xbox’s relationship with its fanbase – that was a turbulent change, with similar conversations surfacing back then that we see today – and yet, they weathered that storm, and I’d argue is a better platform because of that approach.

Since then, we’ve seen the occasional outlier come to a rival platform, but it’s usually in a scenario where the game is more a partnership developed title, with the 3rd party developer wanting to bring it to additional platforms later on. The primary example of this would be the brilliant Ori franchise from Moon Studios, where both games eventually arrived on Nintendo Switch, because the developers wanted to release there. If the rumours of Hi-Fi Rush are true, this would be the first time a true 1st Party title would be released on a rival platform, and for many, it is a step too far.

Xbox leadership need to define what their plans are going forward, and provide clarity to their fanbase in short order. We know they’ve had to dance a merry tune to regulators, and maybe that plays a part in this alleged decision. We know that concerns have already been raised when Tim Stuart, Xbox CFO recently told investors that Microsoft wants Game Pass and 1st Party games on “every screen that can play games” – including PlayStation and Switch. We know that Phil, when discussing Bethesda said that releases on platforms for games are looked at on a “case-by-case” basis, and perhaps this is one of those times. But we also have Phil on record with an interview on Podcast Unlocked:

“Right now, it seems like when any game comes out, there’s that – ‘is this one going here is this one going there.’ I’d rather be able to set more of an Xbox-level expectation for our fans on where things are going to go. I thought we did that with our first party when we talked about games shipping on Xbox and PC, and I got some blow-back from certain people in certain groups on that, but at least we set an expectation on that…. I don’t really love this idea that for every one of our games, there becomes this little rumor on it ‘is it going to end up on the Switch or not.’

I feel we should set a better expectation with our fans than that.”

Phil Spencer on Unlocked.

Hi-Fi Rush was the beginning of the big sea change when it comes to Xbox, with the deluge of titles many fans had patiently been waiting for finally starting to hit a steady cadence. By now potentially releasing that title elsewhere, it’s in many ways communicating to the most faithful fans out there, that Xbox don’t actually care about them. It also continues the debate for every single Xbox game going forward and it drowns out all other conversation – will Elder Scrolls 6 be multiplatform? The next Doom? Fallout?

On a personal level, I don’t care about where players play games – go have fun, it’s just video games. But I also can’t and won’t dismiss these concerns and gripes from Xbox fans – it was finally meant to be their ‘turn’, and in releasing 1st party games on rival platforms, it’s not rewarding the fan base at all – it’s taking them for granted.