We talk about exclusives but currently Xbox has more console exclusive games than PlayStation. Xbox releases more first party games than PlayStation and which are exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. It's been a year since we've been talking about rumors, Starfield, Gears, Indiana Jones, Halo, etc... but the reality is that there are many more false rumors than truths. Lots of discussions and assumptions about the future of consoles and the future of Xbox when there have only been 4 games ported from other consoles, 2 small games and 2 service games respectively 5 and 8 years old.
At the same time, lots of games were released exclusively on Xbox like ravenlock, valheim, age of empires 4, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, Lightyear Frontier, planet of lana, starfield, hellblade 2, Dungeons of Hinterberg (very good game), forza motorsport, etc... not to mention the games planned for 2024 -2025 like indiana jones, stalker 2, towerborne, 33 immortals, avowed, flight simulator, ark 2, fable, fragpunk, south of midnight, and further contraband, clockwork revolution , gears, blade, OD, perfect dark, routine, state of decay 3, etc...
I'm making this big list just so we realize that the line up of exclusive Xbox games is huge. The PlayStation line up is very weak compared to this.
I don't understand how some people can say that they are going to abandon the Xbox for the PS5 to be able to play everything, but it's a big mistake, it's the opposite!
Why don't we talk more about the loss of PlayStation exclusives like Stray, Kena, Final Fantasy XVI, and probably other Square Enix games like Forspoken, Foamstars, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, etc...
Square Enix has announced that it wants to move away from PlayStation exclusives that underperform on a single platform.
Xbox sends a few exclusive games because they can, they have tons of licenses, 3x more studios than playstation, but when it ports 1 game to another platform, they bring back 5 games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. Playstation, meanwhile, is porting all these games to PC, and for some day ones, and making very few first party games, 1 game every 1 or 2 years, while Xbox releases 5-6 per year of their studios.
Another thing, we focus on the exclusives, but the biggest benefit for the player in the end is the day one games in the gamepass, that's the biggest benefit.
But currently, Xbox players have the advantage of the number of exclusive games and day one.
Regarding these rumors, as already said, the reality is that there was tons of fake news for only 4 ported games in the end, which is nothing compared to everything that has been released since.
For me, I'll see hellblade2, it's a very good AA game which is a license historically already on playstation and which hasn't sold very well (because day one in the gamepass and fairly short game), it would be quite logical that they want to recoup their costs. Halo master chief collection, I don't think so, we're still talking about a strong symbol, I don't think Xbox is taking the risk of touching this symbol and the consequences in terms of image.
On the strategy, I think on the contrary that releasing a few Xbox games on PlayStation can on the contrary bring players to Xbox, as long as it is well balanced. Imagine releasing Forza Horizon 5, 5 years later on PlayStation, and at almost the same time you release Forza Horizon 6 on Xbox. PlayStation players who liked FH5 will not want to wait 5 years to play Forza Horizon 6, they will take either the gamepass or an Xbox. I think Xbox has a good shot to play if it's done intelligently.