Xbox Game Studios head says "we want our games to reach the most players that we can," signaling more PS5 releases — is Microsoft done with Xbox exclusives?

All four of the games shown during Thursday's Xbox Developer Direct 2026 presentation are coming to PS5 as well as Xbox systems and Windows PC, with three of them — Forza Horizon 6, Fable, and Kiln — being made by first-party Microsoft developers Playground Games and Double Fine. Forza is scheduled to come to Sony's consoles at some point after launch, with both Fable and Kiln hitting PS5 day one.

Another of Xbox's big first-party 2026 titles, Halo: Campaign Evolved, is also coming to PS5; that's a first for (what was once) the brand's flagship exclusive franchise. And while it's unclear if this year's Gears of War: E-Day will launch there, too, the chances of it doing so are high given the multiplatform nature of every other recent Xbox Game Studios title.

Indeed, it appears that Microsoft is ramping up its emphasis on multiplatform Xbox releases after the immense success of games like Forza Horizon 5 and Sea of Thieves on PS5 — and Xbox Game Studios head Craig Duncan has all-but-confirmed this in a recent interview.

"As the guy that gets to run studios and help our game teams, I take a pretty simple view on this: we want our games to reach the most players that we can," he told GamesRadar+ when asked about figuring out which titles Xbox should bring to other platforms. "That's always our goal. It's rarely more complicated than that. It's like, how can we get this game to as many players as we can?"

This tracks with Microsoft's recent moves away from focusing on its traditional Xbox Series X|S consoles, and it instead "meeting payers where they are." Launching games on other platforms is only one cog in that machine; others include the release of the Xbox Ally handheld, the expansion of Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Cloud Gaming, and making more Xbox Game Pass tiers multiplatform.

As for why some games like Forza Horizon 6 are coming to PS5 at some point after launch instead of at release, Duncan explains that various development variables can interfere with plans to bring certain titles to other platforms. "There's always development realities about when these projects start — how big a team is, and what plans we have at the start of development ... when a strategy changes, maybe you've got a plan that exists with a game and maybe you can adopt that, maybe you can't. So that's why."

"Sometimes we are inconsistent. You see some games in one place, some games in multiple places. Just know that we're going to work on that, and we're going to try and be more consistent with what we do," he continued.

Duncan also noted that the Xbox Game Studios team may choose to bring games to a new platform later if they're not going to be "the best that they can be for that platform" sooner, and won't be able to "take advantage of whatever features and nuances that the platform has."

"I think we would have a conversation internally and go, 'Hey, unless we can do it really well and do the right thing by those players, then…' and that's when you get into conversations of, well, maybe we can ship it afterwards," he said. "Because teams are only a set size. We only have a certain amount of — ultimately, it all comes down to resource. Not everything is limitless. So we just want to do the best job, by each platform, by each game. So in that world, sometimes we'll maintain optionality."

In a perfect world, though, it seems clear that Microsoft would bring all of its first-party Xbox games to every platform if it could, and that suggests we may see the end of Xbox Game Studios titles that are permanently exclusive to Xbox and Windows PC. At the very least, that appears to be the direction the publisher is heading in.

How do you feel about Microsoft and Xbox's focus on multiplatform releases, and what may very well be the end of exclusive Xbox games? Let me know in the comments.

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