Xbox has revealed when four of its games are coming to PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
Last week, the company confirmed that a quartet of titles would become multiplatform without naming any of them. Now, we know that the four games in question are Obsidian’s Pentiment and Grounded, Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush and Rare’s Sea of Thieves.
The first two games were confirmed during the February 21st Nintendo Direct alongside release dates (February 22nd for Pentiment and April 16th for Grounded). Then, in a separate blog post, Microsoft revealed the other two games as well as their launch timing (March 19th for Hi-Fi Rush and April 30th for Sea of Thieves).
However, it should be noted that not every game is coming to both platforms. Per Microsoft:
- Pentiment — PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch
- Hi-Fi Rush — PlayStation 5
- Grounded — PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch (with cross-play enabled between these platforms, Xbox and PC)
- Sea of Thieves — PlayStation 5 (with cross-play enabled between this console, Xbox and PC)
It’s unclear exactly why Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves aren’t coming to Switch.
The ports come amid months of rampant rumours of Xbox shifting to a multiplatform release strategy. Speculation got so out of hand that Microsoft had to release an impromptu episode of its Official Xbox Podcast to set the record straight. As part of those discussions, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer stressed that the current plan is only for these four games and no others.
“Four games, no promise beyond that,” said Spencer. “So if you’re on those other platforms and you see these four games coming, please don’t take it as some signal that everything’s coming. It’s not.”
Instead, Xbox leadership said this marks a general pivot towards exclusive games becoming “a smaller and smaller part of the game industry.” For now, though, the company states that it will continue to release the majority of its games first on Xbox consoles and PC, including this year’s Avowed and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. These titles will also come to Game Pass day one, as has been the case for the past several years.
It also says it’s committed to releasing gaming hardware and even teased a new console.
Image credit: Xbox
Source: Xbox
