Xbox wades cautiously into a multiplatform future | Opinion

gamesindustry.biz:

Back in February, Microsoft ended a few torrid weeks of swirling speculation (not helped by its own cryptic pre-announcement of a forthcoming announcement) when it revealed that four of its formerly exclusive games – Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded – would be launching on other platforms.

At the time, the company stressed the point that these were older games, each having launched more than a year previously, and highlighted Starfield and MachineGames’ upcoming Indiana Jones title as exclusives that were not included in the announcement.

Nonetheless, it would have taken a bit of wilful delusion not to anticipate that this was only the beginning of a broader strategic turn – and sure enough, at Gamescom this week the other shoe finally dropped, with a Spring 2025 launch date on PS5 being announced for Indiana Jones and the Golden Circle, just a few months after the early December launch on Xbox and PC.

Microsoft clearly isn’t minded to just rip this band-aid off and transition to its intended future business model in one fell swoop. It’s been clear for some time that Microsoft has extensive plans to shift its model towards third-party, cross-platform publishing, but the exact shape of that future business model remains a little elusive, not least because of these slowly staggered steps, each couched in careful denials about the next.

Microsoft doesn't care about the potential dampening of Indy’s influence on Xbox sales. That's no longer the metric it cares about nor the prize it has its eyes on

Like a timid swimmer braving a cold sea, Microsoft is delicately lowering itself – and perhaps more importantly, the Xbox fanbase – into the water, letting each body part adjust to the temperature shock in turn. Would it be faster and easier to just jump in and get the shock done with? Certainly, but if you’re not exactly in rude health to begin with, that also seems like a hell of a way to give yourself a heart attack.

So, this week the company waded out a