I think exclusivity is 100% coming back in some form, from full to timed.
I base this on the quotes: "Our new north star will be daily active players", "long-swinging decisions that have decade-long impact"
A lot of people see the daily active players quotes as meaning, well they have to stay multiplatform then. I don't see it that way. Let's say a PS player buys Ninja Gaiden 4 on PS5, finishes it in 3 days, and then once he is done goes back to playing FIFA and all the other big 3rd party games on PS5, for months without ever engaging in the Xbox ecosystem, until maybe a hypothetical port of another Xbox game.
That is not a daily active player for MS. They want players engaging daily in the Xbox ecosystem. They want you to play Game Pass, their first party and third party games on Xbox, daily.
In other words, they are looking at the data, does porting games to PS5 cause the Xbox players to stop engaging in their ecosystem, are core gamers checking out and leaving, choosing to buy 3rd parties on PS5, etc. Has sales of 3rd parties decreased as a result? Are less people playing on Xbox Live? Are people making less purchases on the MS store? I don't have the data, but I could 100% feel it on gaming forums, that a good chunk of the core Xbox userbase were checking out of the Xbox ecosystem. And I think MS senses it too.
That's why her quote of reevaluating for the "decade-long impact" is significant to me. She didn't say the "immediate impact" like Forza Horizon 5 selling 5 million copies on PS5 in 1 year; what they're looking at is "well 10 years from now, will our daily active players in our ecosystem be hurt if we are to continue on this path?" And the logical answer to that question is yes.
Last edited by hiccupthehuman - on 26 April 2026
