According to IdleSloth, during the GamersConcil podcast, Microsoft Xbox gaming source XCloudTimDog revealed some possible reasons why Microsoft has chosen to turn its original exclusive games to third-party platforms.
Recently, there were reports that Microsoft is considering bringing first-party works such as "Starry Sky", "Perfect Soundwave", "Hellblade 2" and Bethesda's new game "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to PS5 and Switch consoles. This news has caused many players to worry about the future of the Xbox console ecosystem, believing that Microsoft may completely abandon the hardware.
According to TimDog, he "heard" that Call of Duty has confirmed that it will not join Microsoft's current Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Then he mentioned XGP, calling it "unsustainable, and the market (Microsoft) owns is not enough to offset the costs."
Elsewhere, Microsoft hardware sales do seem to be very unsatisfactory. First, console hardware sales reportedly fell short of expectations, causing the company's chief financial officer to panic. Microsoft also said that the price of their console was only $350 in the past three months, but still no one cares. Even the Xbox One is more popular than the Xbox Series console, and hardware sales have been declining year by year. As a result, Microsoft allegedly concluded that "hardware is dead."
TimDog said that according to what he heard from inside, the reason why Microsoft's new strategy was leaked this time was because a Microsoft employee who did not want this to happen leaked the secret in an attempt to trigger strong protests from players. If eventually all games were available on all platforms, Microsoft would acquire more game companies and face less resistance because there would be no exclusivity.
He finally concluded that he believes Microsoft will go "fully digital", including placing ads in XGP (similar to "Yakuza"), and will use AI for community management instead of real employees.
All of this has no evidence and is just one-sided "heard from Microsoft employees", so the credibility is not high. Moreover, even the current leaked new strategy has not yet received official confirmation or response from Microsoft. Although it is much more credible in comparison, it is still not a sure thing.