If you ever doubted the “console wars” were over, here’s a new piece of data to consider: Helldivers 2, formerly console exclusive to Sony’s PS5, is currently the best-selling title on Xbox. In fact, it’s the first and third best-selling game, if you count its more premium edition, and it’s currently the ninth-most played game on the platform — mostly beaten by free-to-play games like Fortnite and Roblox but also Minecraft and GTA V.
No, what’s surprising is that we now live in an era where companies like Sony and Microsoft no longer entirely see their hit games as a way to get players to buy their own consoles, and instead just want to sell as many copies of these games as they can. Back in May, we wrote about how the top three games on PlayStation came from Microsoft, and now it’s reciprocal!
Here’s where some of you will no doubt point out: is Helldivers 2 actually a PlayStation game? Since PlayStation is merely the publisher and doesn’t own its developer Arrowhead Game Studios, is it really such a big deal?
I would say yes, because Sony has been the one in control, the one making the strategic decisions over when and where and how much PlayStation goodness to share. When players balked at how Helldivers 2 originally required you to log in with a PlayStation account on PC, it was out of Arrowhead’s hands. When players wanted an Xbox version, Arrowhead said it was entirely up to Sony.
Microsoft doesn’t have to cut such publishing deals to bring Xbox’s biggest games to PlayStation, though. When it chose to bring Indiana Jones and Hellblade 2 to PS5, it could do so because it owns both giant publisher / developer Bethesda and developer Ninja Theory itself.