Unsurprisingly, it seems that everyone associated with the Xbox Team is being asked about exclusive games this week, and that includes Xbox Chief Strategy Officer, Matthew Ball.
In an interview with The Game Business, Ball gave a lengthy answer about how Xbox will deal with exclusives in the future. He began by emphasizing that the mention of two special titles (Gears and Clockwork Revolution) in the Xbox Games Showcase was “important” as it allowed players to understand that “this is not the last”.
He then went on to confirm that the exclusive is “the start of the program” for Xbox:
“This is just the beginning of the program, and players can expect a reliable pipeline that validates their historic investment in the Xbox platform, keeps them as Xbox players going forward, and everyone in the industry understands that exclusivity is critical to the growth and branding of that platform.”
Ball then echoed Matt Booty’s comments about the “big, live multiplayer service” titles left for multiplatform games (citing Call of Duty as the best example), as well as the previously announced PS5 and Switch 2 titles.
What’s even more interesting is that the Xbox CSO then admitted that it knows everything The upcoming Xbox is exclusive, but can’t reveal yet.
“Today, I cannot give you a comprehensive answer [in terms of] “Here are all the titles players can expect this year, next year and beyond will be special”. We know what these will be, we know how we will make those decisions, we know how we will be tested against those decisions. “
“But the important thing is, that framework has to be out there in the end. Everyone in this audience is an expert and a fan of the platform, and I understand why they say “we haven’t got it yet.” We have to communicate that internally, we have to connect that with our partners, and above all at the end of the day, the current ratio of the Xbox player and the player we want, but we don’t understand where we are going today. We are not ready to do it.”
Finally, when asked why a game like Senua didn’t get an Xbox exclusive despite being the single-player adventure game announced last night, Ball simply said he had “no further comment” on it.
To be honest, it sounds like we are no longer smart about Xbox exclusives based on this discussion, but we know at least that the big multiplayer games and the multiplatform titles that were previously confirmed are not in line for treatment.
As for everything else? It remains to be seen!