Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida has commented on Microsoft’s relatively new strategy whereby it launches some of its first-party games on rival platforms, including PS5. For Microsoft, this is about making money and bringing its games to more people. It’s also a win for PS5 owners, according to Yoshida.
“I think it’s a win for PlayStation owners; they didn’t have access [to those games] before,” he said on the Sacred Symbols podcast, as reported by VGC.
Yoshida was at one point managing Sony’s first-party game production pipeline before he switched positions to running the indies team. When he was running first-party, Yoshida said it was a “nightmare” scenario for PlayStation to become “the minority platform” because that would make it “impossible to maintain the first-party development because the best creators would leave.”
He added: “They are not just creatives, they are business people as well; they want their games to reach the biggest audience as well.”
Microsoft, of course, is in last place as it relates to console sales among the big three, with PS5 and Switch sales outpacing the Series X|S. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer recently said he’s no longer trying to get PS5 owners to switch to Xbox but instead wants to bring more of Microsoft’s first-party games to PS5 to meet them where they are.
Microsoft has been embracing a more platform-agnostic strategy for many years already but only recently has the company actually begun releasing more and more games for PS5 and Switch. For its part, Sony continues to focus on exclusives for its own platforms, while also bringing more games to PC, including day-and-date titles for its live-service games.
One of the next big Xbox game to come to PlayStation is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which comes to PS5 this spring following its debut on Xbox in 2024. After that, Doom: The Dark Ages comes out in May for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, launching on all platforms at the same time.
The RPG Avowed from Microsoft-owned studio Obsidian launched on February 18, but it has not been announced for any platforms outside of Xbox and PC.