Xbox can never go back to exclusives and Halo on PS5 is the proof of that

With placeholders for PS5 copies of Halo: Combat Evolved appearing on store shelves, it’s clearer than ever that the days of Xbox exclusivity are over.

Following Phil Spencer’s departure as the head of Xbox, and Asha Sharma coming in as his replacement, there’s been a lot of talk of Xbox pivoting back to dedicated console exclusives after its previous move towards multiplatform releases.

Sharma quickly acknowledged the demand for exclusives, from some members of the Xbox community, and has outright said Microsoft will ‘re-evaluate our approach to exclusivity.’ It’s not a confirmation, but it is enough to make some despondent Xbox fans hopeful for a return to games that you can only play on Xbox.

Such a re-pivot, though, seems extremely unlikely, if not impossible, and the best evidence for that is the fact there are now copies of Halo with the PlayStation 5 logo emblazoned on it, sitting on store shelves.

The Halo: Combat Evolved remake, which was announced last year, isn’t out yet (in fact, it still lacks an exact release date) but placeholders for the PlayStation 5 version have appeared on GameStop shelves, as spotted by a member of the Halo subreddit this week.

There’s naturally lots of talk about how wild it is to see Halo make the jump to PlayStation 5 but while it’s not the first Xbox exclusive to do so, it is the most important.

Halo has taken a significant fall from grace over the years, but it was once the king of Xbox exclusives. In fact, for the the original trilogy, it was one of the biggest video game franchises in the world.

It was also the primary reason to invest in Xbox hardware and Microsoft continued to position it as such all the way up to Halo Infinite, which was amongst the first batch of Xbox Series X exclusives and originally meant to be a launch title before it was delayed.

Remaking the very first Halo and launching it on PlayStation is an admittance that locking it to the Xbox Series X wouldn’t have bolstered the console’s dire sales and would have hamstrung the game’s own sales. If Halo is going to make a comeback, it needs a new avenue to reach new players.

The harsh reality that some Xbox owners struggle with is that while exclusives are an important factor for deciding whether or not to buy a new console, even Xbox’s best and biggest exclusives aren’t enticing enough. Not Halo or even Forza Horizon, which is arguably the premiere Xbox franchise nowadays and has already seen great success on PlayStation 5.

And if fewer people are buying the console, fewer people are buying the games. So, if Xbox is going to make any money, those games need to be available elsewhere, which is why it’s so strange to hear Sharma even hint at exclusives returning.

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It’s not as if Xbox console sales have recovered and it’s far too soon to tell if Project Helix will be enough of a runaway success that Microsoft can comfortably abandon multiplatform releases, especially when it’s expected to be extremely expensive and a hard sell to anyone outside the most dedicated Xbox fans.

Additionally, it’s simply not a good look to about-face on exclusives and only risks damaging Xbox’s already fractured reputation; something you’d think the company would be keen to avoid after fumbling all the goodwill it accrued from the Xbox 360 days and woefully mishandling the following two console generations.

Sure, returning to exclusives will earn some brownie points from old school Xbox fans, but Xbox would be trading one disgruntled player-base for another. New Halo fans on PlayStation won’t be compelled to pick up Project Helix just to keep enjoying the series; they’ll just be annoyed and view Xbox as distrustful.

Plus, while Xbox’s multiplatform pivot only happened two years ago, it’s quickly become normalised, especially as Microsoft has proudly marketed its ports for games like Starfield, Gears Of War, and Fable as well.

Perhaps Sharma’s re-evaluation will only lead to some exclusives. Bigger franchises like Halo will remain multiplatform, but new, original games could be kept Xbox only. But it’s hard to see the long-term benefit of that.

It’s the big franchises that make for the best exclusives, while original IPs will inherently struggle to attract new Xbox customers and generate sales. From a financial perspective, it makes little sense and also risks confusion over what’s exclusive and what’s not among those less attuned to the gaming scene.

There’s simply no good outcome, financially or reputationally, to Xbox walking back its multiplatform pivot. And if it does ever happen, it’s more likely to be another blunder to add to the list rather than the key to salvaging the Xbox brand.

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