More Xbox games to break exclusivity, Phil Spencer hints

More first-party Xbox games could break exclusivity and release on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch platforms, a new interview with Xbox CEO Phil Spencer indicates.

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A bit ago, Microsoft made the controversial decision to officially break first-party exclusivity and sell Xbox games on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. Four first-party Xbox Game Studios titles crossed over to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, including Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment. Now it sounds like more games are coming.

In a recent interview with Polygon, Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer asserted that Microsoft's new business plan has a few goals. Xbox wants to reduce friction and break the barriers in between the walled garden ecosystems that separate the Big 3's platforms. There's some ambiguity to Spencer's words because of the author's paraphrasing, but overall the interview shows how Spencer is thinking about the current gaming landscape and the future of Xbox.

"What are the barriers? What are the things that create friction in today's world for creators and players? And how can we be part of opening up that model?" Spencer said.

The CEO goes on to highlight how PC is a more dialed-in ecosystem, potentially indicating that Xbox could become more like a Windows PC and potentially offer different ecosystems besides just Xbox.

"If I want to play on a gaming PC, then I feel like I'm more a continuous part of a gaming ecosystem as a whole. As opposed to console [where] my gaming is kind of sharded, to use a gaming term, based on these different closed ecosystems that I have to play across."

Specifics on what this means for the Xbox brand remain unknown, but it sure sounds like more and more Xbox games will start crossing over to other platforms as Microsoft seeks to break down barriers while making a profit along the way.

On a big picture level, Microsoft has said it will create a universal storefront that hosts console, PC, and mobile games in a single shop. It's possible that this universal store will also include other merchants and storefronts such as the Epic Games Store and Steam.