Is This The End Of Xbox Exclusives? It Should Be

The news of possible multiplatform ports of games that are currently Xbox console exclusives was met with a strangely negative reaction from some gaming fans, but now that the four titles receiving ports have been confirmed, Microsoft needs to do even more to end the anti-consumer tactic of exclusivity once and for all. Some hardcore Xbox enthusiasts reacted as if multiplatform releases are a betrayal by Microsoft and opine that there is no longer any reason to own an Xbox console. This serves as a reminder that consumers have been conditioned for far too long to perceive exclusives as beneficial.

Rumors from earlier this month had some Xbox fans dreading February 15, when the official Xbox podcast was scheduled to release new information about the future of the brand. There were a few legitimate reasons for concern for Xbox aficionados, since some believed that multiplatform releases meant Microsoft would follow in the footsteps of Sega, exiting from a role as a console manufacturer and switching entirely to the role of a third-party software publisher for other platforms. This would abruptly end the support for backward compatibility that carried over from Xbox One to the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles.

Some PlayStation fans have had a similarly negative response to Sony porting previously PlayStation exclusive titles to PC, despite this having no negative impact on PlayStation owners.

These fears proved unwarranted, as the podcast also confirmed a next-generation Xbox console is coming to compete with the inevitable PlayStation 6 at some point. Outside of worries that Xbox consoles might cease production, thereby making it harder to access existing libraries on currently relevant hardware in the future, there were no reasonable causes for concern over Xbox game ports. An Xbox game being released on the Switch or PlayStation 5 does not remove it from the Xbox library. Exclusivity does not make a game better, and the emphasis placed on console exclusives is