We have a new rumor about what Microsoft is planning to announce this week.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Microsoft is anticipated to confirm that they will be bringing more of their first party games to rival platforms, namely, the Nintendo Switch and the PlayStation 5. The first games expected to be announced under this plan are Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush.
Microsoft was technically already a third party publisher on their rival’s platforms, even before they acquired Activision Blizzard King. The big title that put them in that position was Minecraft. In that specific case, Microsoft saw the advantages to bringing Minecraft to as many platforms as possible. Just so we’re clear, Mojang went through the effort of bringing Minecraft to the 3DS and even the Wii U. Given the following the franchise has with Nintendo fans, and also PlayStation fans, that bet paid off for Microsoft.
Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush are in a similar position as Minecraft. They are not high budget AAAs like Starfield. That means they aren’t quite tentpole titles that attract the biggest audience of gamers. However, at the same time, they do have a potential to find a broader audience outside of Microsoft’s platforms.
Microsoft had argued during the regulation of their Activision deal that they do have a criteria for deciding when games will become multiplatform, and which games will stay exclusive to Xbox. Minecraft, Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush actually still fit that old criteria, and it’s just that we hadn’t heard that Microsoft had plans to make them multiplayer as well.
However, Microsoft had also stated during their regulation that they would make a special case for Activision games, as a precondition to getting the acquisition approved. So they committed to honoring agreements Activision made with competitors like Sony, and they also indicated interest in continuing their relationship beyond that.
If you think about it, that decision was a big one to make for Microsoft. There is a possibility that they could have gotten away with withholding those games from Sony, because the CMA, EU, and most regulators agreed that their job was not to protect Sony from competition if they lost games.
What we’re looking at now is the opposite situation. Microsoft must have put thought on whether it makes sense for them to keep their other games exclusive to Xbox as well.
And so, here we are, as Microsoft has scheduled the business update with Xbox’s biggest higher ups, to explain the ‘future of Xbox’ to the gaming public. Is Starfield going to PlayStation 5, or are Phil, Sara, and Matt about to disprove that rumor completely? Are Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush really going multiplatform? What if all of these rumors had been fake all along, and they’re about to show us Sebile and the Xbox handheld instead? All will be answered soon.
