Destructoid Checkpoint: The death of the exclusive

I spend a lot of time pointing at things that we should be worried about as gamers in this newsletter, to the point where things sometimes feel a bit gloomy. I get it, it’s nice just to sit back and take a win sometimes. For this reason, today I would like to discuss an interesting development in gaming where corporate greed is actually paying off for gamers: the death of the exclusive. 

The concept hasn’t flatlined yet, and I don’t feel like we will ever truly get to the point of releases of all titles on all platforms, which is the gamer paradise that I long for, but we are certainly seeing improvements. We are also seeing some interesting hints as to what this might mean for the future. 

Show us your belly, Phil

After trying to talk a good game and seeming somewhat scary after convincing everyone else at Microsoft to give him $60 billion to buy Activision (this may not be exactly what happened, to be fair), Phil Spencer spent a little time walking a delicate line with diehard Xbox fans. 

Green brand lunatics were desperate for blood in a console war that they had been getting hammered in this generation. Xboxes were not selling the way people who get way too invested in a corporation wanted them to (I own both an X and S, before you get mad at me), and it was time to bring the pain to the so-called Sony Ponies (I also own a PlayStation 5 Pro). 

Large numbers of people on Twitter (still not calling it X) really seemed to want Xbox to commit financial suicide in a move that would have seen Phil Spencer frogmarched out of the Microsoft offices and thrown in a dumpster. The best way, apparently, to hurt the enemy was to take the Call of Duty series exclusive.

No longer being able to play on PlayStation would definitely teach those pesky blue-branded dorks a thing or two. Call of Duty makes an estimated $1 billion to $1.5 billion annually on PS. Leaving all the money on the table is definitely what Microsoft had in mind when it invested $60 billion in Activision. 

It was an embarrassing time to be anyone with a functioning brain, and the hope for it rapidly died away when a cohort of Xbox fans then spun off in the opposite direction. Not only were Xbox not going to go around to the houses of every PlayStation user and make sure they deleted their save files, but they were going to stop producing hardware. Xbox was dead. It was over.

The whiplash was intense.

The reality was that things were going to stay pretty much as they always were. In fact, Xbox was going to make some new games available on PlayStation. They were also still going to make hardware; they were just going to try and convince you that everything was an Xbox at the same time. 

Meanwhile, the games that Xbox has been releasing on PlayStation have been making them plenty of cash, so you can expect them to keep on following the money. 

So long, Jim

Over on the PlayStation side of things, Jim Ryan had spent the last 5 years or so kinda being maybe a bit mid. It’s maybe a harsh view of his tenure, but the most obvious thing about PlayStation during the Jim Ryan years was that it lost some magic, developed way too much focus on live-service games, and released a financially successful but artistically dull console generation. 

One thing we have seen in recent years is Sony games arriving on PC, normally games with sequels on the way, like Horizon Zero Dawn or God of War, but sometimes games that had little chance of getting a sequel, like Days Gone. We have also seen some of the games that Sony apparently paid exclusivity deals for ending up on Team Green, like Genshin Impact.

Popular democracy simulator Helldivers 2 is also due to arrive on Xbox, and that will swell the ranks of Earth’s fighting forces as we can all battle alongside each other to kill the alien, destroy the robot, and punch squid-faced Iluminate right in their dumb mouths. 

We also have a recent job listing for a Senior Director to handle “multiplatform and account management” for “executing the global commercial strategy for PlayStation Studios software titles across all digital platforms beyond PlayStation hardware, including Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox, Nintendo, and mobile.”

As you might suspect, a select group of people are crying on social media about it, but it seems Sony is really starting to see the light. According to a report from Circana, six of the ten top-selling games on PlayStation platforms in Q2 2025 were from Microsoft.  Only two were from Sony (MLB: The Show 25, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach), one was from Ubisoft (Assassin’s Creed: Shadows), and the last was from Bandai Namco (Elden Ring: Nightreign). 

Now, to be fair, that would have been a little different before the Activision and Bethesda purchases, but the simple fact is that Microsoft did buy those companies and does sell those games and is now making boatloads of cash by doing so. 

It’s definitely time for Sony to relax, get a focus back on strong single-player experiences, and then release them on a broad offering of platforms in a reasonably timely manner. I don’t ever expect to see first-party Sony titles arrive on Xbox the way we currently see Microsoft-owned studios releasing on PlayStation, but that is mostly because suddenly losing half their potential sales would destroy studios that established themselves via third-party tactics. 

I’m not expecting to see the world change overnight, but we are seeing all the evidence we need to hold some hope that things will continue to change for the better for people who just want to play some games. 

What's happening, Destructoid?

Over on the Destructoid mothership, Bhernardo Viana is discovering hidden gems in his Steam library. – “This wasn’t about backlog guilt. I just thought past-me was smart enough to know what I’d like to play, so surely there was something fun in there. So I went to the darkest corners of my Steam library and installed games I didn’t even know existed. Bundle fillers, freebies, or simply titles I had no idea why or how they ended up there. They got bonus points if I looked at them and said, “Meh, I don’t think I’ll like this.”

Scott Duwe decided to find a simpler life, taking a week off games. – “But for the past week, I actually took some time off to experience life away from screens for a bit, and I can’t recommend it enough. Not only was it good to take a break from games for a while, but stepping away from something you enjoy is totally healthy.”

Kyle Ferreira took a trip into the world of Diablo IV for the first time in a long time and was surprised by what he found. 

Kacee Fay is back with the Watchlist, and it’s been a marvelous week. – “I care so much more about the members of the Fantastic Four and Thunderbolts than I ever did the original Avengers. I just feel like so many of those characters and the bonds between them didn’t really get a chance to shine until it was too late, whereas all the members of these new teams already feel quite complex and fleshed out, even though they’re just getting started.”

And that’s it for the week, dear reader. Stay gold.