Xbox becoming the best third-party publisher of 2025? It’s more likely than you think.
Reliable leakers are pointing to Starfield launching on PS5 later this year. The Verge’s Tom Warren claimed on The Xbox Two Podcast recently that the game “should” be coming to PS5 soon, maybe alongside its second expansion. If that’s the case, we’re looking at yet another reason the PS5 is set to have a strong year… courtesy of Microsoft.
Starfield Is Just The Latest Game To Fly To PS5
I’ve been waiting for this port since Starfield first launched on Xbox Series X|S and PC back in 2023. Prior to release, the spacefaring RPG was one of my most-anticipated games for that year, but my PC ended up not being powerful enough to get a good experience. Being in small, interior environments was fine, but anytime I explored one of the game’s cities — honestly, everybody’s main reason for playing the game — my framerate tanked. Paired with a mixed response from players, I decided to wait to finish the game until a) it came to PS5 or b) I caved and bought a current-gen Xbox.
Waiting for a PS5 release seemed like a longshot back then. This was before Xbox began its multiplatform push, bringing Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, Pentiment, and Sea of Thieves to PS5 and/or Switch. Now, we’re on the other side of the game-playing audience’s collective freakout over Xbox declaring death to exclusives in early 2024, and Phil Spencer has made it abundantly clear that no game is off the table.
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While Indiana Jones and the Great Circle wasn’t the first domino to fall, it was the most consequential. Hi-Fi Rush, Grounded, and Pentiment are all solidly double-A releases, and Sea of Thieves is seven years old at this point. When Xbox announced in August 2024 that it would bring MachineGames’ immersive sim to PS5, it was an indication that big, new, expensive games (the kinds that once would have been console-sellers) were up for grabs.
Forza Horizon 5 was the next port to get an official announcement, with the open-world racer hitting PS5 on April 29. Now Starfield is looking to be a likely candidate. Avowed rumors have been a mixed bag, but I see no reason it wouldn’t eventually come to PS5, especially with Obsidian stable mate The Outer Worlds 2 announced for the console.
Xbox: A Third-Party Champ?
The result is that there’s a real chance Xbox ends up being my top third-party publisher of 2025. This speaks to how good the games Xbox has published recently have been (or, at least, how much they look like the kind of games I really want to play). Indiana Jones was one of my most anticipated games of 2024 list, and I only skipped it because it launched so late in the year that it had no chance of making my GOTY list. If it had been an October or November release, I would have attempted to power through on my underpowered laptop.
Avowed, too, was a game I was planning to play on PC, but it launched at the same time I was diving headfirst into Henry of Skalitz’s Bohemian adventure. I still haven’t gotten to it because, well, I’m still hanging out with Henry.
Xbox is bringing a lot of good games to PS5, and on the one hand, I’m glad. On the other, I can’t help but wonder how this can be profitable for Frito-Lay? The point of making exclusives is for them to sell consoles. If you bring all the games to the competitor (and, in Indiana Jones’ case, just a few months later) there’s no reason for players to buy them on the console you actually make. Sure, they’re available on Game Pass on day one, but Xbox wants you to know that a whole bunch of other devices, besides an actual console, can be an Xbox. I don’t get the strategy but I do kinda appreciate the vision, if that vision is me walking around New Atlantis with a stable framerate.
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If Steam Comes To Xbox, Microsoft Is Finally Bowing Out Of The Console Race
But maybe that’s not a bad thing.