On Thursday Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer made a shocking announcement confirming rumors that the company will be making four exclusive games available for Playstation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Surprisingly he never said which games they will be. A report by The Verge claims the games will be music themed action game Hi-Fi Rush, adventure game Pentiment, pirate themed action game Sea Of Thieves and survival game Grounded. 

Well there you go, I think it’s a massive shift in priority for Xbox. They needed to try something as they have really been lagging behind Sony in terms of sales and quality of exclusive games. The four games that will be trialed as part of this new deal are interesting choices. I think there will be more to come for sure. The rumors leading up this was that Starfield and the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would be part of it but they haven’t been confirmed yet. Personally I think they will be, I think Indiana Jones would certainly be a massive opportunity for Xbox. The potential of adding the game to Playstation 5 would make a ton of sense just from the financial aspect alone. When you get down to it, I think that’s the main reason for Xbox to do this whole deal.

The big question is whether this will represent a huge shift in gaming of non exclusivity for consoles. Will Playstation make games like Spider-Man, The Last Of Us, and God Of War available to other consoles? Will we be able to play Pokemon and Mario on Xbox or Playstation? Personally, I don’t think so. I would absolutely love for it to happen as I’m a fan of everybody being able to enjoy the best games regardless of the console. But I think Xbox is just trying something different after a report back in December claimed the Playstation 5 outsold the Xbox Series X and S by three to one. They are still far behind in sales terms. It will certainly be a move that will be watched very closely in the industry and time will tell if it will be the right one.