Xbox Aims for More Consistent Multiplatform Releases

The head of Xbox Games Studio has commented on the mindset and strategy behind XGS-produced games landing on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles.

The days of the console wars of the 2000s, pitting Xbox, Nintendo, and Sony consoles against each other, have come and gone. These days, the Xbox team wants players to get behind the idea that everything is an Xbox. As part of the strategy, Xbox’s first-party games are beginning to release on PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch family of consoles.

Recently, Xbox announced that the forthcoming Fable reboot and Forza Horizon 6 would both be coming to PlayStation 5, with Fable releasing across all consoles on the same day and Forza coming to Xbox platforms in May with a later release on PlayStation.

The Head of Xbox Game Studios Discusses Multiplatform Release Strategy

During the recent interview with Games Radar+, Craig Duncan of XGS stated that his main focus is to ensure as many players as possible get to experience Xbox-produced titles.

When questioned about the consistency of titles across different platforms, Duncan admitted that, while strategies and realities change, they’re aiming to be more consistent with multiplatform releases in the near future.

There’s always development realities about when these projects start – how big a team is, and what plans we have at the start of development. Like you said, when a strategy changes, maybe you’ve got a plan that exists with a game and maybe you can adopt that, maybe you can’t. So that’s why. And to be clear, this is totally fair feedback. Sometimes we are inconsistent. You see some games in one place, some games in multiple places. Just know that we’re going to work on that, and we’re going to try and be more consistent with what we do.

But you know, for our game makers, if you’re on the Fable team, you just want as many people who love Fable to appreciate the great work that the team’s doing. That’s always our goal. It’s rarely more complicated than that. It’s like, how can we get this game to as many players as we can?

Learn more about the origins of the Fable reboot coming to both Xbox and PlayStation consoles this year at this link. You can check out everything announced at the most recent Developer Direct here.

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