Xbox Exec Aaron Greenberg Teases Surprises for 2021

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2021 is shaping up to be a huge year for Xbox, with some big first-party releases lurking around the corner. While fans are mostly aware of what to expect from the green team in 2021, it seems there are a couple of surprises that are still in the oven.

A recent rumor suggested that, like EA Play before it, Ubisoft Plus may also be headed to Xbox Game Pass. While there hasn't been any indication of whether this is true, Xbox head Phil Spencer did recently tease the future of Game Pass. Speaking to Major Nelson earlier this week, he talked about how its growing subscription service could look like in 2021. Although he didn't reveal what new additions fans should expect, he did promise that "it's going to be an incredible year for Xbox Game Pass."

Xbox GM Aaron Greenberg shared similar excitement for Xbox in 2021. In his New Year tweet, he talked about how excited he is for the upcoming year. This includes the Bethesda acquisition, as well as the highly anticipated release of titles such as Halo Infinite and Psychonauts 2. He further added that there will also be some surprises that fans don't know about yet. While he could be referring to anything from a new game release to a new studio acquisition, it doesn't take away the fact that Xbox fans have a lot to look forward to in 2021.

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Many would argue that one of these surprises may very well be Bethesda's hotly-anticipated sci-fi RPG Starfield. While the details regarding the game are still pretty vague, it is confirmed that the game will be coming to Xbox Game Pass at launch. While there's no confirmation on whether Starfield will launch on PS5, Xbox Chief Financial Officer Tim Stuart has confirmed that future Bethesda titles will run the best on Xbox platforms.

Whether these surprises are related to the first-party or third-party partnerships, it's hard to ignore how strong the Xbox lineup in the coming years looks like. With the reveal of Perfect Dark reboot from the newly formed studio The Initiative, Microsoft's first-party lineup has never looked so promising. Moreover, with its recent acquisitions, Microsoft is clearly hoping to be the house of western RPG's.

However, most of these titles are still pretty far away and these 2021 surprises may not be in regards to them. On the other hand, PS5 will see a handful of big first-party games in 2021 such as Horizon Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok, both of which are guaranteed to sell exceptionally well, given their popularities. While this doesn't take away anything from Xbox, it would be interesting to see how these surprises stack up to PlayStation's exclusive titles.