Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said there is nothing stopping any of the company’s games from coming to Nintendo or PlayStation platforms in the future.
“I don’t see any red lines in our portfolio that say ‘you shouldn’t,'” Spencer told Bloomberg, adding that it was still too early to discuss Microsoft’s plans for the next Halo, which is now being built cross-platform. friendly Unreal Engine.
Xbox released Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded and Sea of Thieves on a mix of PlayStation and Nintendo Switch consoles earlier this year to some success, with over 1 million reported sales for the popular service pirate game on I live from Rare. Microsoft will follow this with the PlayStation release of Xbox’s biggest Christmas hit, Indiana Jones and the Big Circle, early next year. The expectation is that many other Xbox games will follow.
In a wide-ranging interview, Spencer also talked about his long-standing desire to release some kind of Xbox handheld console. Microsoft is currently working on prototypes and considering the market, Spencer said, although the launch of an official Xbox handheld is still a few years away. (Therefore, there was no Xbox handheld before the Switch 2.)
Spencer also said that Xbox still “definitely wants to be in the market” to acquire other companies, following Microsoft’s record-breaking $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. That said, deals of similar size are currently unlikely to happen due to the still-ongoing process of merging Activision’s teams.
The Xbox boss said he was still looking for deals that would add “geographical diversity”, such as teams in Asia, even though he stepped away from Hi-Fi Rush studio Tango Gameworks earlier this year.
“Xbox’s business has never been healthier,” Spencer concluded, when asked how he felt about 2025 after a year marked by repeated layoffs. “Business is humming right now and I think that means a healthier future for the hardware and games we create.”
