Games

Xbox May Be Slowing Down Its PS5 Ports

Published

1 month ago

October 24, 2024

Christoph Rediske

Key Takeaways

Table of Contents

Xbox began experimenting with multiplatform ports earlier this year, with four first-party games already released on PS5 and two more coming in 2025.
After supposedly negative fan reactions to Indiana Jones’ PS5 port, Microsoft may be slowing down future PS5 ports of Xbox first-party games.
The Halo and Gears series are reportedly “red lines” for Microsoft, which means they’re likely not coming to PlayStation platforms anytime soon.

A new rumor alleges that Microsoft may have slowed down development on PS5 ports of Xbox first-party games. As part of an unexpected strategy shift, Xbox started publishing games from its first-party back-catalog on PS5 earlier this year, but it seems negative fan reactions might have compelled Microsoft to relax its porting efforts, at least temporarily.

Xbox’s multiplatform push kicked off with an initial roster of four first-party games, namely Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Pentiment, and Grounded. Out of these games, Sea of Thieves particularly enjoyed tremendous success with over one million copies reportedly sold on PS5. It didn’t take long for more rumors to start rolling in about which other Xbox first-party games could make the jump to PlayStation platforms, but so far, Microsoft has only confirmed that Doom: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle will come to PS5 in 2025.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Shows How Video Games Can Preserve Legendary Theatrical Performances

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle stars a youthful Harrison Ford, which could mean gaming could help preserve a franchise’s legacy.

However, it seems the announcement of Indiana Jones coming to PS5 may have led to a shift behind the scenes at Xbox in terms of its multiplatform strategy. Reputable insider eXtas1s, who routinely breaks accurate Game Pass news, stated in a recent tweet that Microsoft has either “paused” or “slowed down” the PS5 ports it’s currently working on. The insider emphasized that this doesn’t mean those Xbox first-party ports for PS5 are canceled, just that Microsoft is possibly re-evaluating them in some capacity at the moment.

Xbox Fans are Apparently Not Happy About Indiana Jones on PS5

As for why Microsoft could be rethinking its multiplatform strategy for Xbox, eXtas1s claimed that the reason is supposedly “not good” fan reactions to Indiana Jones‘ PS5 port. The insider didn’t specify whether they were talking about PlayStation or Xbox fans, but the latter seems likelier since Indiana Jones is a highly-anticipated game that’s no longer an Xbox console exclusive. In potential good news for Xbox fans, though, eXtas1s also alleged that the Halo and Gears games are “red lines” for Microsoft, likely implying that they’re off the table for multiplatform ports, at least for the time being.

If this rumor holds true, it could debunk an earlier report about Microsoft potentially considering a Halo 1 remake for PS5. Despite the bevy of IPs under its belt after the Activision Blizzard and Bethesda buyouts, it seems the Halo franchise is still very important to Xbox. This was further evidenced by the recent rebranding of 343 Industries to Halo Studios and the confirmation of all future Halo games being built on Unreal Engine 5.

Xbox Series X

Microsoft’s ninth-generation console, the Xbox Series X is a powerful machine that can support 4K resolution and 60 fps, depending on the game. Released alongside the Xbox Series S, the Series X has a Custom AMD Zen 2 CPU, a Custom RDNA 2 GPU, and 16 GB of RAM.