South of Midnight will be available on March 31st for both consoles, approximately a year after it released on PC and Xbox Series X|S. This marks another milestone in what has become a rapid dismantling of Microsoft's exclusive games strategy. The southern gothic action-adventure fromCompulsion Games, mixing platforming with magic-infused combat in a unique setting inspired by the folklore of the South, wasfirst launched for Xbox Series and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store on April 8, 2025.
Let's be real: this is not about generosity or some sudden commitment to gaming democracy. It's about revenue.The game likely reached sizable audience by launching on Game Pass and PC, but coming to PlayStation and Switch will open it up to an even bigger audience. As Microsoft reworks its Xbox brand to focus more on software than hardware, releasing its exclusives on other platforms has become a key part of its ongoing strategy.
From a fiscal standpoint, the logic is sound. PlayStation 5 has a significantly larger installed user base than Xbox Series X|S. Porting games to Sony's and Nintendo's systems broadens the addressable market without cannibalising existing sales on those platforms (most people buying the game on PS5 would never have bought an Xbox anyway). The real money for Microsoft comes from Game Pass subscriptions and digital sales across all platforms, not from console hardware alone.
Yet this strategy carries genuine costs that the centre-right critique of Microsoft's approach rightly identifies. Console loyalty, brand differentiation, and the reason players invested in Xbox hardware in the first place have been substantially weakened.The PS5 and Switch 2 ports of South of Midnight will continue Microsoft's multi-platform publishing push that's been ongoing for nearly two years now, dating back to early 2024. Two more upcoming Xbox titles have already been confirmed to be going multi-platform: Halo: Campaign Evolved and Forza Horizon 6.
The Halo announcement was particularly striking.Microsoft Gaming Content and Studios head Matt Booty attributed a desire to take games to where players existed irrespective of platform, due to lack of player attachment to current consoles and a reduced view of other platform holders such as Sony and Nintendo, as competition for Xbox next to other media. In other words, Microsoft has explicitly acknowledged that console wars matter less than competing with TikTok and streaming entertainment for players' time and money.
The counterargument deserves weight. Sceptics point out thateverything from Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Halo are making the jump to rival platforms, potentially hollowing out the reason to own an Xbox in the first place. If every game ends up on PlayStation or Switch within a year, what incentive remains for the hardware investment? Console exclusivity, whatever gamers' grumbling about it, has historically driven adoption.
Yet the pragmatic reality sits somewhere between these positions. Console gaming itself is changing. Younger audiences distribute their play across multiple devices and platforms rather than committing deeply to a single ecosystem. Game Pass itself has become the actual product Microsoft is selling, not Xbox hardware. If Microsoft can grow the subscriber base faster by making the service available on more platforms, that is economically rational.
The company's new CEO Asha Sharma has signalled openness to bringing back exclusivity windows where it makes sense, but even then, the point is business efficiency rather than loyalty building. This represents a profound shift from the era when hardware manufacturers competed fiercely for exclusive software. That era is probably over.
For Australian gamers, the practical consequence is choice. Games are cheaper to acquire, available across more systems, and less subject to the deliberate scarcity that exclusivity creates. The cost is borne by Microsoft's own hardware ecosystem, which gradually becomes less differentiated.