In a gaming landscape where platform exclusivity is increasingly becoming a hot-button issue, the head of Xbox herself, Sarah Bond, has signaled a major shift in strategy, confirming that Microsoft sees little future in locking games to a single console. But for some developers, this new multi-platform reality isn't a new trend—it's a long-held business philosophy they’ve been fighting for.
In a revealing new discussion, Thomas Mahler, the director of the highly anticipated action RPG No Rest for the Wicked, has disclosed that his game could have been an Xbox exclusive, but he turned the deal down to avoid what he bluntly calls a “dumb business decision.”
This stance highlights the growing financial pressures facing game developers and suggests that the industry's push away from exclusivity is being driven as much by studio balance sheets as by corporate strategy.
From Ori to Independence: The Financial Reality of Modern Game Development
Moon Studios, the visionary team behind the critically acclaimed Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, has a history with Microsoft. Those beautiful, metroidvania-style games were published by Microsoft and were, for a time, exclusive to Xbox and PC.
This time, with No Rest for the Wicked, the studio is taking publishing into its own hands, launching first on PC via Steam Early Access. But this move toward independence wasn't for a lack of trying on Microsoft's part.
According to Mahler, Microsoft approached Moon Studios with an offer to make their new project another Xbox exclusive title. This was before the company's recent public pivot away from the exclusivity model. For Mahler, however, the calculus was simple and left no room for debate.
He couldn't justify the monumental loss of potential sales on the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch platforms.
Taking to social media to elaborate, Mahler painted a stark picture of the economic challenges in today's triple-A development scene. Development costs have "spiraled out of control" since the heyday of rigid Xbox and PlayStation exclusives. Even with powerful new technologies, creating the high-fidelity models, textures, and animations that players expect remains a painstaking and expensive process.
In this environment, voluntarily cutting off a massive segment of the gaming market is a luxury few studios can afford.
As Mahler stated in a recent post on X (formerly Twitter): "We were actually approached by Microsoft shortly after we first announced [No Rest for the Wicked]... but I just couldn't see a world where cutting out the PS5 and Switch player bases made any financial sense. It would have been a dumb business decision, plain and simple."
A Wiser Bet in Hindsight: The Declining Appeal of Console Exclusives
With the benefit of hindsight, Moon Studios’ decision to remain multiplatform looks prescient. As adoption rates for Xbox Series X|S consoles have lagged behind the PlayStation 5, the potential revenue from an exclusive deal shrinks accordingly. By ensuring No Rest for the Wicked will launch on PS5 and Switch (after its Early Access period on PC), Moon Studios has secured a much larger potential audience from day one.
Mahler’s vision extends beyond his own studio. He predicts that PlayStation, too, will continue to abandon its strict exclusivity for first-party titles, following the path Microsoft has now publicly embraced. However, he points to one major outlier: Nintendo.
The Nintendo Exception: Why the Switch 2 Will Buck the Multi-Platform Trend
As the industry grapples with this new direction, all eyes are on Nintendo and its upcoming successor to the wildly popular Switch. Will it follow suit? Mahler believes not, and he makes a compelling case for why Nintendo operates in a different realm.
According to the director, Nintendo’s "business model is entirely different." The company has spent decades building an iconic stable of first-party intellectual properties—from Mario and Zelda to Pokémon and Animal Crossing—that are intrinsically linked to its hardware. Gamers buy Nintendo consoles explicitly to play Nintendo games, a level of brand synergy that Sony and Microsoft have never been able to replicate.
This unique position means that for Nintendo, keeping its major first-party games exclusive to the Switch 2 isn't a "dumb business decision"—it's the core of its very successful business model.
The Future is Multi-Platform
Despite the earlier exclusivity offer, fans will be pleased to know that No Rest for the Wicked is still currently planned to launch on Xbox Series X|S alongside its other console versions. Yet, the entire episode underscores a fundamental change in the games industry.
The walls between platforms are crumbling, driven by the simple economics of game development. And if the latest rumors are to be believed—that the next Xbox hardware will essentially be a Windows-based device—it would deal another deathblow to the very concept of exclusivity, proving that visionaries like Thomas Mahler were simply ahead of the curve. For studios and players alike, the future is, and will be, multiplatform.
My take on this:
— thomasmahler (@thomasmahler) October 23, 2025
Folks, look at it from a Developers perspective: Exclusives for most studios just don't make sense anymore cause the numbers don't make sense anymore.
So as much as some of you folks want to shit on what she's saying (and I very much understand why), she IS… https://t.co/CbicIsz85Y
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