Microsoft has officially opened the floodgates for any first-party games created by Xbox to come to PlayStation and Nintendo. The company’s video games chief Phil Spencer explained that “I no longer see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not’” to Bloomberg.
Four Xbox titles were ported to PS5 and Nintendo Switch earlier this year, among them Rare’s Sea of Thieves and Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush. Sea of Thieves charged up the sales ranks on PlayStation after pre-orders opened, filling Microsoft’s coffers and pleasing Spencer, who’d been under pressure to deliver good financial results after the Activision Blizzard acquisition.
That takeover was followed by waves of layoffs at Microsoft’s gaming properties, including the closure of studios like Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin. It looks like the cost-cutting finally has come to an end, with Spencer telling Bloomberg that “the Xbox business has never been more healthy” and “is performing right now.”
Microsoft is looking at handheld hardware, mobile growth, and Asia
Spencer confirmed that Microsoft is currently looking at handheld gaming hardware, saying that “we’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles.” He emphasized that any result of the current research and development phase is still years away, however.
Aside from that, Spencer sees potential for growth on mobile and in Asia. Microsoft is already working on a store for mobile devices and wants to be ready to launch at the moment courts have cracked open Apple and Google’s ecosystems for good. To further those ambitions, the acquisition of a mobile developer is on the table – and Spencer is especially interested in Asian studios, the area in which Xbox rival Sony has traditionally had the upper hand.
HoYoverse’s Genshin Impact, one of the most lucrative games on the planet, is only coming to Xbox Series X|S in November 2024. Spencer famously neglected the opportunity to sign a deal with the Chinese studio before the open-world RPG launched, driving it right into Sony’s arms.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella hailed Black Ops 6 as “biggest Call of Duty release ever” recently, evidently agreeing with Spencer’s sentiment of feeling pleased about the current state of things.
