Microsoft Will Allow Their Studios To Make Multiplatform Games on Nintendo Switch & PS4

Microsoft has multiple studios under its umbrella. Ninja Theory, InXile and Obsidian Entertainment or Compulsion Games, Playground Games and Undead Labs are some of the studios that the company recently acquired, in addition to founding its studio of The Initiative. Those at Redmond have already advanced what is their roadmap for the projects that these studios will develop: they will be multiplatform, but the Triple-A titles will stay on Xbox.

Without going any further, we were recently able to enjoy the launch of the challenging Cuphead on Nintendo Switch. Although Studio MDHR is not owned by Microsoft, the game does belong to a large extent to the company. So seeing it published on the Nintendo platform was a pleasant surprise.

The remaining question, then, is: Will Microsoft repeat this formula with future projects? As stated by Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, everything points to yes.

“I think we would,” Booty said when asked in an interview with Game Informer if Microsoft would allow cross-platform publishing of their games. “I think that the question is less binary about ‘should it be on Switch? Should it be on PlayStation?’ and more ‘does it make sense for the franchise?’ In other words, is it a kind of game where it would benefit from the network effect of being on a bunch of different platforms? Or is it a game where we can best support it by putting resources and making sure that our platforms – things like xCloud and Game Pass and Xbox Live, we’re really leaning in to support the game.”

Booty mentioned the Minecraft case as an example: even Minecraft Dungeons is scheduled to be published on consoles such as Switch or PlayStation 4, even though Microsoft acquired the Mojang studio. However, he continued by saying that Microsoft will want to safeguard its main exclusive titles for its own system.

“Obviously, we’re going to have our big franchises like Forza and Halo and Sea of Thieves,” he continued, “where those games are designed from the beginning to really only exist on Xbox, and I think that will continue.”

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