Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Starfield isn’t going multiplatform, but 4 Xbox games are

Tomas Franzese
By
Key art for Starfield
Bethesda Game Studios

Microsoft finally gave its fans an update on the future of its gaming business during the Official Xbox Podcast today. It clarified some of the speculation around its first-party games going multiplatform, explaining that this move only applies to four titles.

“We made the decision that we’re going to take four games to the other consoles. Just four games, not a change to our kind of fundamental exclusive strategy.” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said. “We’re making these decisions for some specific reasons. We make every decision with the long-term health of Xbox in mind, and long-term health of Xbox means a growing platform, our games performing, building the best platform for creators, reaching as many players as we can.”

Updates on the Xbox Business | Official Xbox Podcast

Phil Spencer refused to name the four games going multiplatform, though, because “the teams that are building those games have announced plans that are not too far away.” Still, he confirmed that Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle aren’t part of that lineup, which will contain a mix of live-service titles and “smaller games that were never really meant to be built as platform exclusives.” Ultimately, his point was that Xbox fans should not take this move “as some signal that everything is coming” to other platforms.

Recommended Videos

To reinforce the idea it wants to make its games as widely available as possible, even if it’s just on Microsoft-made platforms, Xbox President Sarah Bond confirmed that Microsoft will start bringing Activision Blizzard games to Xbox Game Pass. The first title will be Diablo IV on March 28.

Related

Microsoft has not confirmed the names or release dates of the four first-party titles going multiplatform at this time.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Our favorite Xbox Series X games of 2023: Starfield, Hi-Fi Rush, and more
A character from Starfield stands in front of text that Best Xbox Games 2023.

This was a year of low lows and high highs for Xbox.

On one hand, Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition faced a whole lot of scrutiny and Bethesda's Redfall was a bust. On the other, Xbox Game Studios finally started to release first-party games more consistently in 2023, some long-awaited games finally released, and the Activision Blizzard deal eventually went through. Microsoft now looks to keep that momentum going into 2024 as it integrates the Call of Duty publisher into its organization and tries to keep up the first-party consistency with games like Senua's Saga: Hellblade II and Avowed.

Read more
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom isn’t our Game of the Year, but it’s the strongest No. 2 ever
Link giving a thumbs-up with a smile.

When we asked our writers to give us a list of their favorite games of 2023, everyone had a different game in the top spot. We saw votes for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake 2, Hi-Fi Rush, and even Sonic Superstars. Baldur's Gate 3 ultimately won out, but what stuck out to me the most following that process was how, on almost everyone's list, the same game was in that No. 2 slot: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Released by Nintendo in May after a long wait, Tears of the Kingdom would have been the industry's unequivocal game of the year in any other year. Although its competition was too stiff in this packed year for that to be the case, that doesn't make Tears of the Kingdom any less of an experience. In fact, I think that earning a spot near the top on almost everyone's personal list at Digital Trends demonstrates how widely appealing Nintendo's latest Zelda game is and that end-of-year gaming conversations should be about uplifting great games, not nitpicking their flaws to determine which one's the best.
Recognizing great games
Tears of the Kingdom is a monumental achievement in open-world game design. It essentially has three worlds stacked on top of each other. From almost any point in Hyrule, it's possible to stop, look around, and find several points of interest around, above, and below yourself. That alone makes it a game that consistently delivers a sense of awe and discovery, even after dozens of hours of playtime.

Read more
For Microsoft, indies aren’t Game Pass extras. They’re the future of Xbox
A list of indie games on Xbox appears in a grid.

Xbox may be about as corporate a brand as you can find, but it’s been a surprisingly vital platform for independent developers. That dates back to the Xbox Live Arcade days of old, when small developers were given a place to easily publish their projects on consoles. Rather than pulling away from those days, Xbox has only doubled down on its relationship to indies in the years since through initiatives like ID@Xbox and a Developer Acceleration Program designed to help underrepresented developers get their games out.

Over the past few months, the brand has been on a global tour to reach small developers directly and court them to Xbox. That effort would take the company to New York City on November 18, where Xbox leadership would speak to local developers and students about how to submit to their programs (the event would also feature a questionably timed speech from New York City Mayor Eric Adams amid an FBI investigation into his campaign funds). It’s clear that Microsoft is investing a lot of time and money into signing deals with small developers, but why make the effort when it could comfortably thrive just by publishing major titles through acquired publishers like Activision Blizzard and Bethesda?

Read more