Halo and Gears Of War can come to PS5 confirms Xbox boss

The release of Lego Horizon Adventures this week – which is also being released on Nintendo Switch – reopens the question of how Sony feels about publishing their games on other formats. The truth is we have very little idea, since their only comments on the subject have been vague and ambiguous, but by comparison Microsoft has talked about it quite a bit.

What they’ve said has often bore little relation to what they’ve done – given they once insisted Indiana Jones And The Great Circle was not coming to PlayStation 5 – but reading between the lines it’s seemed they’ve been preparing the way for all or most Xbox first party games being released on other console formats.

Now, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has given the clearest possible indication of that, by insisting that ‘I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not’’, in terms of individual games going multiformat.

Spencer didn’t mention any franchise by name, or give any indication of what would be next, but did say that it’s too early to make a decision about the next version of Halo.

That’s no doubt because the next game is a long way off, with the developer only recently indicating that it has started work on new titles. Although rumours have already suggested that the move to Unreal Engine 5 is in part to make porting to the PlayStation 5 easier.

The next big test for Xbox’s multiformat plans will be the release of Avowed next February, which it’s somewhat surprising was not on PlayStation 5 from the start, given it’s a lower profile title.

There’s still no release date for the PlayStation 5 version of Indiana Jones but if it becomes clear that Microsoft is planning a roughly six month exclusivity period for Xbox games, before releasing them on PlayStation, then it becomes easier to predict what will happen with other 2025 titles such as South Of Midnight and Fable.

Like the new Halo, the likes of Perfect Dark, Gears Of War: E-Day, and State Of Decay 3 have no release year yet but if they’re 2026 or later then by that point first party Xbox games may be appearing on other formats as a matter of course.

In theory this will include the Switch 2, although it’s uncertain how powerful Nintendo’s new device is and which titles it will be able to handle. Releasing Call Of Duty on Switch was one of Microsoft’s key arguments for allowing the Activision Blizzard acquisition, but whether the Switch 2 will be able to handle it and other high-end titles remains to be seen.

Elsewhere in the interview with Bloomberg, a (rather bedraggled looking) Spencer indicated that Microsoft was still interested in buying other companies after Activision Blizzard, hinting at more mobile publishers and perhaps a studio in Asia – even though they only just shut down Tango Gameworks.

Despite continually falling Xbox Series X/S console sales, Spencer insisted that, ‘The Xbox business has never been more healthy. The business is performing right now, and I think that means a more healthy future for hardware and the games we build.’

‘I feel pretty good about where this industry is going,’ he added. ‘To reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles.’

Once again, he strongly hinted at releasing a handheld Xbox in the future, which is assumed to be the next gen console the company has technically already announced, but this time he implied that it is still a few years out and not necessarily aiming for the previously rumoured 2026 release date.