One of the most frustrating things for developers on the Xbox 360 was the Xbox launch parity clause, a rule which initially carried over to the Xbox One. The rule was simple, no games could be released on the Xbox after they were released on other platforms. It was Xbox first or never.
But, luckily for developers, it looks like the time of that clause is over. In a recent interview, Xbox’s Phil Spencer was asked if the rule was dead and he replied “I think so. There’s this idea that’s been named ‘parity clause,’ but there is no clause… If there’s a developer who’s building a game and they just can’t get the game done for both platforms–cool. We’ll take a staggered release. We’ve done it before, and we’ll work with them on that.”
He went on to say that Microsoft won’t hold it against companies who decide to launch on another platform first. “If another platform does a deal with you as a developer to build an exclusive version of your game for them, and you can’t ship on my platform for a year, when the game comes out in a year let’s just work together to make it special in some way,” he explained. “People complained about that, but you did a deal with somebody else and you got paid for it and I’m happy–we do those same deals, so I’m not knocking you. It’s going to be better for you, actually, because people don’t want last year’s game, they want something special and new.”
Source: Gamesradar