Katarzyna Petru
When PlayStation spent over $300 million on a single game and realised something the industry had been reluctant to admit for years: keeping players in closed ecosystems is no longer profitable. Meanwhile, when Phil Spencer announced that there are no longer "red lines" regarding the transfer of Xbox titles to competing platforms, the gaming world shook. And shortly after... everything became clear. Exclusivity is dying – before our eyes.
Once: "Have a bad console? You won't play"
Once, everything was simpler. Want to play God of War? Buy a PlayStation. Dreaming of Halo? You have to have an Xbox. Games were like entry tickets to closed clubs – those with the right console had access. Today, all of that is falling apart. Too much has changed. There’s too much money at stake. And contrary to what many thought – Microsoft was the first to throw down the gauntlet.
Microsoft breaks the dam. Xbox without borders
February 2024. Four titles from the Xbox family – Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded and Sea of Thieves – are coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. This wasn't a one-off move. It was the first step in a complete strategy overhaul. Phil Spencer stated plainly: there are no more barriers. If a game makes business sense outside of Xbox – it will go there. Just like that.
It didn't take long. Gears of War: Reloaded and Forza Horizon 5 are joining the march to PlayStation. Insiders like Jez Corden are saying bluntly: exclusivity at Microsoft is a thing of the past.
The decision didn't come from nowhere. Xbox has long been selling more than just hardware. Xbox sells... subscriptions. Game Pass now has 38 million users (data from June 2025). And the numbers don’t lie: the more players there are, the greater the profit – whether they play on Xbox, PlayStation, or a fridge with a touchscreen.
And soon, more releases from Xbox Game Studios may land on PS5 – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and The Outer Worlds 2 are just the beginning.
Sony hasn't been playing in its sandbox for a long time
If you think Sony will be the last bastion of “only on PlayStation”, then you’ve missed the last two years. The Japanese giant has also realised that keeping hits exclusive to one platform is a risk, not an advantage. The official PlayStation Studios account on Steam? That's not a novelty. It’s an open shop with AAA hits.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered, Spider-Man 2, Stellar Blade, Horizon, and even Days Gone – all available on PC. Often at higher resolutions and with better framerates than on PS5.
Why? Because the cost of making one game is already as much as 300 million dollars (Spider-Man 2 – data from the Insomniac Games leak). And suddenly... locking yourself to one platform is simply a bad investment.
Subscriptions: a true game-changer in the gaming market
But the biggest change isn't even the new platforms. It's a new way of playing. Once, a game cost 300 zł and you had to count every purchase. Today? Xbox Game Pass gives access to hundreds of games for just a few dozen złoty each month. And – most importantly – you get the new releases right on launch day. That changes everything.
The subscription market has explosive potential. From $10.1 billion in 2023 to over $21 billion by 2030. An annual growth rate of 11.3% – that’s no longer a trend. It’s the new standard.
Microsoft knows that Game Pass is gold. That's why day one releases and new subscription tiers are just the beginning. Ultimate is now the only package that gives full access to the entire ecosystem – and that's no coincidence.
Playing Without Borders. Cross-platform as a Foundation
Cross-play is no longer a bonus – it’s a foundation. Fortnite, Rocket League, Minecraft – each of these titles has shown that gamers don’t want barriers. They want to play together. Regardless of the hardware. And data confirms this:
77% of gamers use more than one platform
Over 395 million people played in the cloud in 2024
By 2027, this number will rise to nearly 500 million
When everything works through streaming, the boundaries between PS5, Xbox, PC, or Switch 2 become... arbitrary. The same game is coming from the cloud. It doesn’t matter what you’re playing on.
Exclusivity? Only for those who don’t look to the future
Cloud gaming, multiplatforming, subscriptions – this is not the future. This is the present. Exclusivity was an artificial boundary, created by marketers. Today, gamers are voting with their wallets and their voices – and they want one thing: to play without restrictions. And it seems they are finally getting what they have deserved for years.
Xbox understood this first. Sony soon after. Nintendo? It will wait, but it won’t escape. By 2026 we won’t be asking "what are you playing on?", but "want to play together?".
Source: ppe.pl
