Katarzyna Petru
When PlayStation spent over 300 million dollars on one game and realised something the industry had not wanted to admit for years: keeping players in closed ecosystems is no longer profitable. Meanwhile, when Phil Spencer announced that there were no longer any "red lines" regarding bringing Xbox titles to competing platforms, the gaming world shook. And shortly afterwards... everything became clear. Exclusivity is dying – before our eyes.
In the Past: “Got the Wrong Console? You Won’t Play”
Once, everything was simpler. Want to play God of War? Buy a PlayStation. Dreaming of Halo? You need an Xbox. Games were like entry tickets to exclusive clubs – whoever had the right console had access. Today, all that is falling apart. Too much has changed. There is too much money at stake. And contrary to what many believed – 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 was not a one-off move. It was the first step in a complete change of strategy. Phil Spencer stated plainly: there are no more barriers. If a game makes business sense outside of Xbox – it will go there. Simple as that.
It didn’t take long. Gears of War: Reloaded and Forza Horizon 5 join the march to PlayStation. Insiders like Jez Corden say directly: exclusivity at Microsoft is a thing of the past.
The decision did not come out of 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 – regardless of whether they play on Xbox, PlayStation, or a fridge with a touchscreen.
And soon, more releases from Xbox Game Studios may come to PS5 – Indiana Jones and the Great Circle or The Outer Worlds 2 are just the beginning.
Sony has long ceased to stick to its sandbox
If you think that Sony will remain 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 curiosity. 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 of this is available on PC. Often at higher resolutions and with better framerates than on PS5.
Why? Because the cost of making one game is already even 300 million dollars (Spider-Man 2 – data from the Insomniac Games leak). And suddenly... closing oneself off to one platform is simply a bad investment.
Subscriptions: a true game-changer for the gaming market
But the biggest change isn’t even the new platforms. It’s a new way of playing. Once upon a time, a game cost 300 zł and every purchase had to be carefully considered. Today? Xbox Game Pass provides access to hundreds of games for just a few dozen złotych a month. And – most importantly – you get the latest releases right on the day they premiere. This 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% – this is no longer a trend. This is 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 currently the only package that offers full access to the entire ecosystem – and that’s no coincidence.
Gaming Without Limits. Cross-platform as a Foundation
Cross-play is no longer a bonus – it is a foundation. Fortnite, Rocket League, Minecraft – each of these titles has shown that players do not want barriers. They want to play together. Regardless of the hardware. And the data confirms this:
77% of players 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 runs through streaming, the boundaries between PS5, Xbox, PC, or Switch 2 become... arbitrary. The same game is streamed from the cloud. It doesn't matter what you play on.
Exclusivity? Only for those who do not look to the future
Cloud gaming, multiplatformity, subscriptions – this is not the future. This is the present. Exclusivity has been an artificial barrier, invented by marketers. Today, players are voting with their wallets and their voices – and they want one thing: to play without limits. And it seems that 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 anyway. In 2026 we will no longer ask "what are you playing on?", but "do you want to play together?".
Source: ppe.pl
