Microsoft returning to exclusives — some Xbox titles to skip PlayStation 5

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Microsoft reportedly plans to make more of its best games console exclusive so people actually have a reason to buy an Xbox console.

New Xbox boss Asha Sharma has already begun this process, making The Coalition’s Gears of War: E-Day and inXile’s Clockwork Revolution available on Xbox Series X and S and PC only, skipping PlayStation 5 in the process.

But according to Bloomberg , Microsoft plans to return to exclusives in a more meaningful way. Big multiplayer games will continue to release across platforms, including PS5, Bloomberg said, but Microsoft “will make more of its best titles exclusive to Xbox so gamers have a reason to buy its console.”

This begs the question: what is considered among Xbox’s best titles, and thus will potentially skip PS5? A number of games that fit the bill are already confirmed for PS5. For example, Playground’s Forza Horizon 6 is still down to come out on PlayStation, although it doesn’t have a release date for Sony’s console yet. Playground’s fantasy RPG, Fable , is due out on February 23, 2027 for PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC. Mojang’s Minecraft Dungeons 2 launches September 29, 2026 across PC, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S.

Things get interesting when we start to consider the mega games Microsoft has up its sleeve. I expect Call of Duty won’t ever be Xbox console exclusive, given it falls into that big multiplayer game category. But Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 6 is a strictly single-player affair. As a result, could it skip PS5?

Keeping such an enormous game off PlayStation would be one of the biggest calls in Xbox history. It would mean missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars of potential revenue from Sony’s console, all in the hope it would encourage sales of Xbox Series X and S. At a time of such financial crisis, as Microsoft insists Xbox is suffering, can it afford to leave so much cash on the table?

Microsoft is heavily rumored to be readying a Fallout 3 remaster and maybe even a Fallout: New Vegas remaster, following on from the successful release of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered . Could those games skip PS5 also?

And here’s perhaps the biggest question of all: could the next mainline Halo game go back to its exclusive Xbox roots and skip PS5? This summer’s Halo: Campaign Evolved is multiplatform, but that was confirmed before Sharma took over the business and began her “reset.” Would a new Halo be considered a big multiplayer game and stick with a multiplatform release? Or could it launch Xbox console exclusive?

This is all part of a refocus on the Xbox console, as Sharma has indicated before. This comes at a time when Xbox is languishing in third place, behind PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, and amid what Sharma has called “the most severe hardware crisis in its history.”

And through it all, Microsoft is making an eye-watering number of layoffs at Xbox . 1,600 people were cut this week, with another 1,600 going over the course of the next year. Five studios are set to leave the Xbox business. Doom developer id Software was gutted , as was ZeniMax Online Studios, developer of The Elder Scrolls Online . Obsidian, too, suffered significant layoffs .

Announcing the layoffs, Sharma admitted Microsoft’s video game strategy had failed, including Game Pass , spending big on new studios, and, crucially, betting on multiplatform.

“While those businesses have created meaningful value, they did not grow at the pace we expected,” Sharma said. “As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a better outcome. And now the industry is facing the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset Xbox.”

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.