Xbox Games Could Make Their Way To Switch 2 Sooner Than You Think

Over the past year, Xbox has increasingly shifted from selling itself as a traditional console to more of a gaming platform that exists on multiple devices, including cell phones and TVs. Recently, CEO Phil Spencer has even been talking about bringing Xbox games to the consoles of its biggest competitors.

Since the launch of the Xbox in 2001, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have competed to make sure their console commands the biggest piece of the gaming pie. One major weapon in that battle has been exclusive games that can only be played in one place. But now, Xbox has signaled a major shift in that strategy, meaning the once-unthinkable prospect of playing former Xbox exclusives on a PlayStation or a Nintendo Switch could become a reality soon.

“There’s no reason for me to put a ring fence around any game and say this game will not go to a place where it would find players, where it would have business success for us,” Spencer told journalist Destin Legarie in a recent interview. “Our strategy is to allow our games to be available.”

Spencer’s answer came in response to Legarie asking if Starfield was definitely remaining an Xbox exclusive, after the surprising announcement that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was going multiplatform. Spencer confirmed that even a game as big as Starfield, which Xbox put a significant amount of attention and money behind in the leadup to its launch, could potentially end up on a Sony or Nintendo console.

Spencer was even more explicit about Xbox’s plans when speaking to the hosts of Gamertag Radio. Spencer says he emailed Nintendo CEO Shuntaro Furukawa to congratulate him after the announcement of the Switch 2 and even expressed excitement to bring Xbox games to the upcoming hybrid console.

“I’m really looking forward to supporting them with the games that we have, and I just think they’re such an important part of this industry,” Spencer said of Nintendo.

Spencer’s comments align with Xbox’s broader advertising strategy lately, pushing the idea that Xbox is a platform that exists across devices, rather than just a console itself. None of that means that the Xbox console as we know it is going anywhere, though. As Spencer told Gamertag Radio, there are tradeoffs with bringing games to non-native platforms (the Nintendo Switch 2 is likely to be a significantly less powerful console than the PS5 or Xbox Series X, for instance), and there are still reasons for some players to choose an Xbox even when its games are available everywhere.

“I want people to pick hardware based on the capabilities of that hardware and how that fits into the choices they want to make about where they want to play,” Spencer says. “We want our hardware to win based on the hardware capabilities that we have.”

It’s only been four years since the launch of both the PS5 and Xbox Series X, so unsurprisingly, neither Sony nor Microsoft is talking about new hardware yet. However, rumors point to Microsoft following the path that Nintendo started with the Switch and making a handheld of its own. If that were to actually materialize, it would likely resemble portable PCs like the Steam Deck much more than Nintendo’s console. Rather than a proprietary handheld with an exclusive selection of games like the Switch, the Xbox console of the future could be just one of many devices that can play the Xbox library, much like the Steam Deck lives side by side with other desktops and portable PCs that can play the same games, each with their own hardware advantages.

It’s too early to say exactly how the future of Xbox hardware will shape up, but it’s clear that the company is undergoing a major change in how it sees software. By the time the Switch 2 launches, we may already see a surprising lineup of former Xbox exclusives available for the console.