Despite some earlier comments, Xbox Head Phil Spencer has cleared the air on whether we might see Game Pass on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles.
Towards the end of last month, chief financial officer at Xbox Tim Stuart said in a presentation at a Wells Fargo TMT Summit that the games company wants to “bring our first-party experiences [and] our subscription services to every screen that can play games. That means smart TVs, that means mobile devices, that means what we would have thought of as competitors in the past like PlayStation and Nintendo.” Welp, it seems like that’s not an immediate goal of Xbox’s at the very least, as in a recent interview with Windows Central, Spencer made it clear there currently aren’t any plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo.
“I’ll start by saying we have no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo,” said Spencer. “It’s not in our plans. But I think you hit on the right point of ‘what it means to own an Xbox.’ The thing I want to be focused on is how do we continue to innovate for people who’ve made the commitment to our hardware platform? And how do we continue to make sure that they feel great about their investment in what we’ve built.”
Spencer also touched on how Xbox has been growing Game Pass, bringing it to PC and adding in cloud streaming functionality. “It’s an important part of the Xbox console identity. And I think it will continue to be that. And we will continue to look at future ways for us to innovate across our game portfolio and our platform.”
So, no, you won’t be able to play Game Pass on your PS5 or Switch, at least not right now. Spencer has previously said how Game Pass won’t come to competing consoles, though he does still seem intent on meeting players wherever they might be. I’d love Game Pass on the N-Gage personally, the gaming platform of the future, but that’s just me.