It’s been a pretty grim week for Xbox and its fans, to say the least. A huge wave of Microsoft layoffs gave way to several major game cancellations for titles like Rare’s Everwild and The Initiative’s Perfect Dark, with the latter studio also shut down completely. That comes just weeks after a very well-received Xbox Games Showcase, overshadowing the excitement and positivity from that event and calling Microsoft’s commitment to upcoming projects into question.
One bright piece of news amid all the ill tidings, however, was the surprise announcement that Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox — something I thought might never happen, given that Sony has never published one of its PlayStation Studios titles on Microsoft’s platform before. Indeed, a port of the beloved 2024 co-op shooter is headed to Xbox Series X|S later this year on August 26, complete with cross-play support with PC and PS5.
It’s a shocking development, and one that’s potentially indicative of Sony being interested in bringing more of its first-party PlayStation experiences to Xbox. After all, the firm has been greatly expanding the list of PlayStation games on Windows PC for years now, so it’s entirely possible that it’s looking to dip its toes in Xbox waters as well.
With that said, Sony has historically valued the console exclusivity of its biggest titles — cinematic single-player experiences like God of War and The Last of Us — as they’ve (at least from a content perspective) given the PlayStation maker a notable edge over Xbox in the “console war.” These offer gamers a major incentive to get a PlayStation instead of an Xbox, so it’s highly unlikely these types of games will follow Helldivers 2 to Microsoft’s consoles.
The games that are far more likely to, however, are multiplayer-focused, live-service experiences like Arrowhead Game Studios’ hit shooter. These games stand to benefit greatly from multiplatform releases, as greater platform accessibility naturally leads to higher player counts and more people buying microtransactions like Helldivers 2 Super Credits (these are needed for Warbond battle passes and shop cosmetics).
Notably, this is something that Sony’s likely learned by watching the business moves of none other than Microsoft, with the Xbox publisher releasing four games on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch in Spring 2024, along with a few others more recently. Along with some single-player titles, these games have included multiplayer and/or live-service experiences like Sea of Thieves, Grounded, and Forza Horizon 5.
On the whole, sales data for Xbox games released on PlayStation painted a mixed picture, though the titles that performed extremely well were — you guessed it — online multiplayer games. As of late March, nearly 2 million Sea of Thieves copies sold on Sony’s console, with Obsidian Entertainment’s Grounded achieving about 432,200 sales (the sales data was released before Forza Horizon 5‘s PlayStation launch, but I imagine it’s done very well, too). Those numbers helped Microsoft briefly take over the PlayStation Store last spring.
Undoubtedly, the success of Microsoft’s multiplayer games on PlayStation has caught Sony’s attention, and Helldivers 2’s Xbox launch next month is an experiment to see if it can achieve something similar with live-service PlayStation Studios games on Microsoft’s console. And if Team Green fans want more PlayStation titles on Xbox, they need to support Helldivers 2’s arrival.
While Sony has very little in the way of multiplayer-focused PlayStation games now — beyond Helldivers 2 and after the death of Concord, there’s only really 2022’s Grand Turismo 7 — it’s still aiming to capitalize on the demand in that market. It’s got a competitive heist title from Haven Studios called Fairgames (Fairgame$) coming it feels “very positive” about, for example, and PlayStation recently opened a new developer called teamLFG that originated from Destiny maker Bungie and is working on a live-service experience, teasing “action-based gameplay, moment-to-moment game feel, and richly social virtual worlds.”
At present, Fairgames$ has only been announced for PS5 and PC, and teamLFG’s game will probably only be on those platforms at launch, too. If Helldivers 2 performs well on Xbox like Sea of Thieves and Grounded did on PS5, though? There’s a pretty solid chance we’ll see those titles come to Xbox at some point.
And hey, even if they don’t? You should get Helldivers 2 on Xbox anyway. It’s easily the best co-op shooter I’ve ever played and one of the best PC games for multiplayer fans, and will surely be one of the best Xbox games when it releases on Microsoft’s systems as well. If you preorder, you’ll get access to three unique armor sets; Arrowhead has confirmed PC and PS5 players will have a way to obtain these at a later date.
