Microsoft's Xbox hasn't had the easiest of rides, with the console being trounced by Sony's PlayStation 4 in this generation, with one reason for this being a lack of huge exclusives to compete with the likes of God of War and the upcoming The Last Of Us Part 2.

One surprising success, however, has been Rare's Sea of Thieves - a game that took full advantage of the "games as a service" movement.

Launching to tepid critical response, the multiplayer pirate title has grown in popularity thanks to streamers and word of mouth - and probably through Xbox Game Pass, too. There is no question years after launch that it has proved to be one of Microsoft's best Xbox One releases to date, with a fantastic community and enduring popularity.

Will Sea of Thieves Be on PS4 or PlayStation 5?

Rare, the developer of Sea of Thieves, is a first-party studio - which means they're owned by Microsoft, and so develop solely for Microsoft platforms (including PC) - but there is still a chance that it's a "maybe" - but more as a way to get the Xbox ecosystem onto other consoles.

Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, has long touted the benefits of cross-play, and has stated that Microsoft thinks of Xbox as a platform, not a console - potentially paving the way for Xbox first-party games jumping to rival systems - like the PlayStation 4 or 5.

In an interview with Kotaku last year, Spencer was pressed on the possibility of games like Sea of Thieves coming to PlayStation or even Switch consoles.

"The games themselves are critically important to players and people playing. But ensuring that you have a connected ecosystem with the players, where people’s save game and their state and their friends list and their entitlements move seamlessly from every ecosystem—from every device—that they want to play on is critical," he told Stephen Totilo.

"There aren’t other systems where we can go do that today."

Xbox Live has come to Switch, helping allow players to play with their friends in games like Minecraft - itself a Microsoft-owned property (albeit one that was previously found on other platforms before it was purchased). There's a chance that any Xbox game moving platforms would require Xbox Live (that "connected ecosystem" referenced above), and Sony is unlikely to let that happen.

There's also the chance that Xbox Game Pass could move to other platforms, bringing Xbox first-party titles with it. Microsoft's gaming subscription service gets Xbox Game Studios titles at launch, something the company is keen to preserve going into a new console generation - and Phil Spencer has previously said “We want to bring Game Pass to any device that somebody wants to play on” in an interview with GeekWire.

Given the company's recent friendship with Nintendo, we'd imagine they'd be more likely to put Xbox Game Pass on the Switch - but the console's lack of power might make it a harder transition for many games, although we reckon Sea of Thieves' cartoonish character models and geometry could look great on the portable.

As it stands, Sea of Thieves will be playable on the Xbox Series X towards the end of this year. While much is still unknown about Xbox Series X, the console itself was unveiled at The Game Awards in December - putting an end to the Project Scarlett codename that the company had been using for the unannounced box.

As for Rare, their next titles are Battletoads, a retro-inspired beat'em up, and the recently announced Everwild - which is an adventure title that we don't know a great deal about yet.