Today’s Xbox Games Showcase was the first under the leadership of Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who has pledged to consider making changes to Xbox’s exclusivity strategy. Now, another Xbox executive, chief content officer Matt Booty, has clarified Microsoft’s position on exclusives going forward.
He told Gamertag Radio, “Our big multiplayer games [and] live-service games are going to continue to be multiplatform.”
“We want people to have a reason to get on board with Xbox,” he added. “We want them to have a reason to buy an Xbox. A reason to be an Xbox fan. At the same time, we want to reward all of our players who have been with us for a long time … we know that exclusives are important.”
So why isn’t Gears of War: E-Day going to be on PS5, and is instead an Xbox console exclusive? The game has multiplayer, after all, and it’s expected to get ongoing updates over time. Booty didn’t say outright, but it might have something to do with how Microsoft never announced the game for PS5 in the first place. The game was reportedly planned for PS5, however, and was apparently canceled for Sony’s console late in the game.
“If we promised something to players, we’re going to honor that promise,” Booty said. He added that when Microsoft announces a release date for a game, it will also announce the platforms, so players will “know what the choice will be.”
All of this being said, Booty suggested Microsoft is not settled in its thinking here just yet. “We’re going to keep thinking about this going forward,” he said, adding that Microsoft will take a case-by-case approach to its new releases and what platforms they show up on. The idea is to make the “right decision, not the fast decision,” he said.
If all of this sounds familiar, it’s because former Xbox executives Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond said similar things. Addressing the exclusivity situation, they both said Microsoft would make decisions around exclusivity on a case-by-case basis.
Bond, for her part, appeared on stage in 2021 in front a banner that said Starfield would be an “Xbox exclusive.” In 2023, Bethesda’s Todd Howard said Starfield was a better game because it’s on Xbox and not PlayStation. Then in April 2026, Microsoft released Starfield on PS5. This history has made some people question Microsoft’s commitment to its statements. That’s not out of the ordinary, though, as many companies regularly pledge to do one thing, then do another, in response to changing landscapes or for any number of other reasons.
At the Xbox Games Showcase this year, Microsoft announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution would be exclusive on console to Xbox. No other games were announced as Xbox console exclusives, however.
A blog post from Microsoft celebrating the Xbox Games Showcase touted a “return to exclusives.” The statement went on to stress that E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are not “timed exclusives,” suggesting they may never come to any console platform other than Xbox. The statement went on, “Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan–we’re committed to investing in and growing Xbox both on console and beyond.”
Sharma has said she wants to “reset” the Xbox business and that Microsoft “must” have exclusive content to help revitalize Xbox. That all may be true, but Microsoft’s messaging around exclusives is just confusing right now, as Alessandro Barbosa wrote for GameSpot.
