Does Xbox release PS5 versions of its games on day one, or doesn't it?

Microsoft is aiming to be ‘more consistent,’ says wait for Forza Horizon 6 is a development issue

During last week’s Developer Direct showcase, Microsoft revealed that Playground Games’ Fable will be released on PlayStation 5 at the same time as on Windows PC and Xbox Series X this fall. Playground Games’ Forza Horizon 6, however, will not. The racing game sequel comes out on PC and Xbox on May 19, but the PS5 version will arrive later in 2026.

It was a similar story last year; Obsidian Entertainment’s Avowed, released in February, is still awaiting its PS5 version, while Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds 2 saw a day-and-date multiplatform release in October. In 2025, however, Microsoft’s multiplatform release strategy was relatively new, and it was understandable that its development studios might be playing catch-up. This year, that’s less true.

What is Microsoft’s multiplatform release strategy, exactly? Why are PS5 versions of some games held back, but not others? Is timed Xbox console exclusivity still a thing in some cases?

In an interview with GamesRadar, Xbox exec Craig Duncan answered these questions — up to a point. Duncan is head of Xbox Game Studios, the development and publishing group that includes Playground, Obsidian, Halo Studios, Rare, and many others (but does not include Bethesda or Activision Blizzard teams). Duncan insisted that Xbox Game Studios would continue to make platform publishing decisions on a case-by-case basis. But he also said that Xbox would try to be “more consistent” with its PS5 release strategy, and suggested that the extra wait for Horizon 6 was a development issue rather than a strategic move. Reading between the lines of his answers, it does seem that day-one PS5 releases are the rule, though there will be exceptions.

“There's always development realities about when these projects start — how big a team is, and what plans we have at the start of development,” Duncan said. “When a strategy changes, maybe you've got a plan that exists with a game and maybe you can adopt that, maybe you can't. And to be clear, this is totally fair feedback. Sometimes we are inconsistent. You see some games in one place, some games in multiple places. Just know that we're going to work on that, and we're going to try and be more consistent with what we do.”

Duncan said that addressing the largest possible audience is always a primary concern. “That's always our goal," he said. "It's rarely more complicated than that.”

But he also stressed that releasing the best possible version of a game for a platform would always take priority over making a day-and-date release. “Wherever our games show up we want them to show up and be the best that they can be for that platform,” he said. “If we're only in a position to release a game on a platform and not have it show up really well? Then I think we wouldn't do that. [...] Not everything is limitless.”

In short, it sounds as though the PS5 version of Forza Horizon 6 will simply not be ready for release on May 19, and that the Forza team — unlike the Fable team — did not have the available resources or enough planning runway to make sure that it was. Naturally, allocating those resources is a business decision that will be influenced by many factors — one of which may be that Forza Horizon 5 was only released on PS5 nine months ago and has been selling just fine.

But, according to Duncan, reaching as many players as possible is the number one priority for Microsoft, and delaying a game on any platform is a decision that will only be made for the game’s own sake. In other words: Xbox console exclusivity, for its own sake, is really a thing of the past.