No Man’s Sky officially launches tomorrow on PlayStation 4 and PC on Aug. 12, but where’s the Xbox One release? The “space exploration meets Minecraft ” game is a PS4 exclusive, but that doesn't mean Hello Games can’t release their genre-busting game on Microsoft’s console.
Right now, Microsoft has an “indie parity clause” which means that indie studios have to release their game on Xbox at the same time as other consoles. NMS is officially partnered with Sony, so Microsoft’s system can’t get the game right now.
In the not too distant future, NMS could come to Xbox One. Xbox chief Phil Spencer has said that he is open to working with indie studios who can’t comply :
“I always just say, 'Let's have a conversation.' And it's worked; today, I think we've done a good job of working with the indies on, when they've had parity concerns, if it's just a dev issue for them. But I don't want somebody to come in and just think 'I'm going to go do a special game on one platform and then I'll get to Xbox whenever I get to it,' because I don't think that's right," Spencer told Gamespot in 2014.
Chris Charla, the director of ID@Xbox, has said that he wants No Man’s Sky on Xbox One. On The Inner Circle podcast, Charla said that he “would love to see” NMS on Microsoft’s console. Still, that was over a year ago and no new word has come out. Xbox One users are going to have to get really lucky if they want to explore the billions of planets in space.
All hope is not lost though, there might be another way to get No Man’s Sky on Xbox One. Microsoft has a new program called “Xbox Play Anywhere” which allows players who purchased games on their PC to play them on their Xbox. It’s possible that sometime in the future, Microsoft could allow users with the PC version of the game to port it over to their Xbox.
Still, this is all speculation and if you really want to play No Man’s Sky , you are going to have to buy a PS4 or a nice computer for the time being.
