Xbox Sea Of Thieves is the most pre-ordered game on PS5

While Microsoft has been sheepish about whether newer Xbox exclusives could make their way to other platforms, the apparent success of Sea Of Thieves has made it that much more likely.

Sea Of Thieves was one of four Xbox exclusives confirmed for PlayStation 5 last month, alongside Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment.

At time of writing, Sea Of Thieves is currently the best-selling pre-order on the PlayStation Store in the UK – with the £59.99 premium edition at number one and the £39.99 basic edition at number four. The £49.99 deluxe edition, meanwhile, is at number 10.

As pointed out by data reporter Benji-Sales on Twitter, Sea Of Thieves has topped the same list in the US, ahead of MLB The Show 2024, Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, and Dragon’s Dogma 2.

The PlayStation 5 version of Sea Of Thieves will be released on April 30 with online cross-play support across Xbox and PC.

Sea Of Thieves originally launched in 2018 for PC and Xbox. While it had a rocky launch, it’s quietly become one of Xbox’s biggest first party success stories over recent years, hitting over 30 million players as of June 2022.

The launch of Sea Of Thieves on PlayStation 5 marks the first time a game developed by Rare has ever made its way to a Sony platform. In a recent interview with the The Guardian, Rare explained how Sony helped in the development process for the PlayStation 5 version, with regular catch-up calls before it was officially announced.

‘If we went and visited their studios, we had to do it not wearing Sea Of Thieves T-shirts, as I’m sure you can imagine,’ executive producer Joe Neate said.

An update planned for this month will also add an offline solo mode to the title, with Neate adding: ‘You won’t need Xbox Live or PlayStation Plus. If you just want to come and play on your own, you’ll get to play Safer Seas as a solo player so you can experience all of the Tall Tales content and all of the progression through the companies.

‘It’s another way to fall in love with the game before thinking, ‘maybe I wanna go get that subscription and start playing multiplayer’.’

While it remains to be seen whether its ranking on the PlayStation 5 pre-order charts will translate to long-term success on the platform, this positive early buzz certainly increases the possibility of other Xbox exclusives going multiplatform – with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer previously not ruling out Starfield and Indiana Jones.

Officially, Spencer and other execs have tried to downplay the chances of other Xbox exclusives appearing on PlayStation 5, despite multiple rumours before the official announcement of Sea Of Thieves and the three other lower profile games.

However, since it’s believed that Microsoft’s plans were changed multiple times before the eventual announcement there’s a good chance they could change again if Sea Of Thieves suggests the multiformat policy is proving more successful than expected.