Microsoft Clarifies Which Xbox Series X Games Are Cross-Gen
There appear to be six exclusives in total.
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It's fair to say that there were a lot of games shown off yesterday for the Xbox Series X in the games showcase. Plenty of the games showcased were labelled as Xbox Series X exclusive games, but the messaging was a little less clear on a few other games.
After the showcase, Rare's Everwild and Obsidian's Avowed were both listed for an Xbox One release on their respective websites. Confusion about this came from the fact that they were revealed as Xbox Series X exclusive games not only in Microsoft's showcase itself, but also on an Xbox News post after the showcase.
Taking to Twitter, Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg cleared up the confusion. "Future 1P titles are developed for Xbox Series X first," Greenberg said. "Not saying those games won't ship on Xbox One, only that we're leading with Series X & each studio will decide what's best for their game/community when they launch."
Following up in a message after this, Greenberg stated that both Avowed and Everwild's websites would be updated to remove the Xbox One platform. So it seems as though there are six Xbox Series X exclusive games at the current time: Avowed, Everwild, Hellblade 2, Fable, Forza Motorsport, and State of Decay 3.
This actually breaks from Xbox's comments earlier this year about first-party games for the Xbox Series X. Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, said in January that there would be no Xbox Series X exclusive games for two years, and Phil Spencer added in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz that console exclusives were completely counter to what gaming is.
Either Microsoft has walked back these stances on Xbox Series X exclusive games, or none of the exclusive games showcased yesterday will be releasing for at least the next two years. Considering we only saw very brief teases for State of Decay 3, Fable, Avowed, and Forza Motorsport in particular, the latter is more likely. Check out our recap for a full breakdown of all the games shown during yesterday's Xbox Series X showcase.