Xbox’s multiplatform strategy is already paying off

By Carli Velocci June 14, 2024

Two men look at an election poster for Guybrush in Sea of Thieves. — Rare

If recent numbers are anything to go by, Xbox’s recent strategy change, which involves porting some first-party Xbox games to other competing consoles, has already been successful after just a few months.

PlayStation revealed its top downloaded games for May in a blog posted on Thursday for both the PlayStation 5 and 4. While it doesn’t list exact numbers, the top game for the U.S., Canada, and the EU is Sea of Thieves, which made its way over from Xbox console exclusivity on April 30.

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Sea of Thieves beat out Madden NFL 24, Grand Theft Auto 5, Helldivers 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and other AAA releases. Some smaller games on the charts include Killer Klowns from Outer Space: The Game and Another Crab’s Treasure.

Xbox caused quite a stir back in February when it announced that a handful of its first-party titles would be making their way to other platforms. The first games announced as a part of this new strategy were Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded, and Sea of Thieves. While the first three games were the first to get ported to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation consoles, Sea of Thieves only sailed over to the PlayStation 5.

Sea of Thieves already had a dedicated player base on Xbox and PC — 35 million, according to Xbox as of February — and when it hit PlayStation, it supported crossplay, so even more players could hop on a ship with friends. “We make every decision with the long-term health of Xbox in mind, and long-term health of Xbox means a growing platform, our games performing, building the best platform for creators, reaching as many players as we can,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said in response to rumors that Xbox was ending exclusivity.

Not every first-party Xbox game is going to be available day one on other consoles, and we’ve seen that with Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and in a number of announcements during the Xbox Games Showcase this month. According to Statista, no Xbox games have cracked the top 10 yet on the Switch, but it’s tough to compete against Nintendo mainstays like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which became the company’s bestselling game of all time in May, and franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon.

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Contributor, Games

Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…

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PSSR is the first time any kind of AI upscaling has been used on consoles ... and will be key in PlayStation's success for its true next-generation console.
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With rare exceptions, new game consoles have mainly sold themselves based on providing a graphical leap above its predecessor. This was clear as day going from 8- to 16-bit systems, and perhaps at its peak going from 16-bit to 3D, but has since hit a level of diminishing returns. PS5 games are undeniably better looking than PS4 games of the same scale, but the differences are in the margins.

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The PlayStation launched without many features that we loved from the PS4 . Over the years, a few have come back, but what about themes? These could be earned, downloaded, or purchased, and some even came included with certain games that gave your home screen a new look and background soundtrack related to different games or concepts. This made customizing your home screen that much more fun and personal. However, is this feature on the PS5? Here's whether or not you can put custom themes on your new console or change the background.
Does the PS5 have themes?

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Can you change the background on a PS5?
Again, due to the PS5 dynamically changing the background depending on what you're currently looking at, there's no way to alter your background at this time. Since the background is constantly changing, even if you had a custom image, it would always be changing as you cycled through games. There are a few other ways you can customize your PS5, however, unless Sony gives us the option with an update, there's no way to set a theme on your PS5.