Bringing Sony/Xbox Games To All Consoles May Help Grow The Industry, Says Dev

There was a point in time when it would have been unthinkable for Xbox-exclusive titles like Halo or Gears of War to ever make the leap to PlayStation 5. But the recent cross-platform push by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer may make those rumors into a reality. Now, Thomas Mahler–the creative director of Moon Studios and director of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps–has endorsed Spencer’s approach and suggested that it may be what’s best for the video game industry.

In a lengthy post on X, Mahler argued that it no longer makes sense for Xbox and PlayStation consoles to compete when the hardware is so similar and the user base is “stuck attracting the same 100-150 [million] players for over two decades now.” He argues that the key to growth is to make it easier for players to get their desired games regardless of which console they buy… with the exception of Nintendo, which doesn’t have to play by anyone else’s rules. Mahler added that “rooting for one huge corporation to sell more boxes over another strikes me as fantastically senseless… We should all just share in the love for games!”

For now, Spencer’s platform agnostic position has not been adopted by Sony, but Mahler suggested that the PlayStation maker has already bent towards that reality by bringing its exclusive titles to PC, including the recently announced Rise of the Ronin port.

“We’ll see how long Sony will keep limiting their software sales to one platform,” wrote Mahler. “There’s a reason why they’re already releasing some games on PC now. It’s money. They can probably ignore Xbox for now, since Xbox Series hasn’t sold all that well, but that might change if Xbox makes a great console again. If they end up with a better machine than whatever the next PlayStation is and if players adopt that, Sony’s platform-exclusive strategy is history.”

Some of the most prominent cross-platform titles that are confirmed to be coming to PlayStation 5 from Xbox-affiliated studios include Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Doom: The Dark Ages. Microsoft also owns Activision, which released 2024’s best-selling game across all consoles in the US, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The upcoming launch of Nintendo’s Switch 2 may also help the industry grow this year, and Spencer has already pledged that Microsoft will support the new console as well.