Xbox may allow its new studios to create multiplatform games

Xbox first-party studios boss Matt Booty says the company is willing to consider putting future games on rival platforms, on a per-franchise basis.

Game Informer asked Booty if he would allow newly acquired studios, like Double Fine, Obsidian, and Ninja Theory, to keep creating multiplatform games, to which he replied:

“Yeah, I think we would. I think that the question is less binary about, ‘should it be on Switch, should it be on PlayStation?’ and more, ‘does it make sense for the franchise?’

“In other words, is it a kind of game where it would benefit from the network effect of being on a bunch of different platforms, or is it a game where we can best support it by putting resources and making sure that our platforms, things like xCloud and Game Pass and Xbox Live, are really leaning in to support the game?”

Booty said it made sense, for example, to expand Minecraft onto new platforms after the company acquired Mojang, considering it already had players on non-Xbox platforms. Franchises such as Forza, Halo, and Sea of Thieves, he explained, are designed from the outset to stay exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem, however.

Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds is looking to be one of those franchises, moving forward.