Console exclusives shouldn't be a thing, says Microsoft's CEO

In the latest FTC v Microsoft hearing, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that console exclusive shouldn’t be a thing, as reported by The Verge.

If it was up to me I would love to get rid of the entire exclusives on consoles, but that’s not for me to define especially as a low share player in the console market. The dominant player there [Sony] has defined market competition using exclusives, so that’s the world we live in. I have no love for that world.

He went on to sort of blame Sony for defining market competition using console exclusives. Just a day earlier, PlayStation chief Jim Ryan said that titles like Starfield, an Xbox exclusive, were not anti-competitive.

He also said that the Game Pass is destructive, and Sony will invest in keeping an edge on the competition caused by Game Pass.

At the Xbox Games Showcase 2023 and Starfield Direct event, Microsoft announced that there are over 5000 new games in development for Xbox, a record in the console’s history. So the competition for exclusivity is really going strong.

So what about console-exclusive games?

Should they exist? Should they not exist? Well, console-exclusive games were almost as old as the video games themselves. Important titles such as Resident Evil, or Silent Hill were PlayStation exclusive at first.

The Xbox came with franchises such as HALO, or now Starfield, which, as we mentioned earlier, will be an Xbox exclusive.

Some of the biggest names in gaming are exclusive, and they were built with a console’s engine in mind. Take Legend of Zelda, for example, which is a Nintendo exclusive, and probably Nintendo’s greatest title. If we don’t mention Mario.

The console-exclusive games are forging a competition, that’s for sure. And even though they offer diversity, there is still a lot to discuss, especially in this age and day, on what it means to buy an Xbox or any other console just to play a game that’s bound to that console.

Not long ago, the world has actually experienced a shortage of computer chips, which affected all consoles, as well as the whole technological industry. Wouldnt’t be more sustainable if all these games could be played on just one device, instead of having to buy different devices?

That’s a tough question, especially when we talk about business. But Microsoft is planning to move Windows 11 to the cloud, so maybe cloud gaming, including console-exclusive games, might happen in the future.

What do you think about this? Would you like it if you had access to all games on just one console? Let us know in the comments section below.

Understanding Microsoft’s reorganization of Xbox executives is also possible, so don’t hesitate to take a closer look at our dedicated article covering this topic.