Perhaps the biggest announcement of Gamescom Opening Night Live, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has officially been confirmed for PlayStation 5 after previously being set to launch as an Xbox and PC exclusive title. Now, CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer has explained the surprise release, calling it a business move for the company.
During the Microsoft Gamescom livestream, Spencer was asked what the decision to bring Indiana Jones to PS5 could mean for future Xbox releases in relation to its ongoing multiplatform push, which recently saw the likes of Pentiment, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, and Sea of Thieves make their way to more platforms.
"Obviously, last spring we launched four games, two of them on the Switch, four of them on PlayStation, and we said we were gonna learn," Spencer said. "We said we'd watch. I think at Showcase, I might have said, from our learning, we're gonna do more.
"What I see, when I look, our franchises are getting stronger. Our Xbox console players are as high this year as they’ve ever been. So I look at it and I say, okay, our player numbers are going up for the console platform. Our franchises are as strong as they’ve ever been."
Xbox chief Phil Spencer responds to a Q about how Indiana Jones on PS5 connects back to how / when this happens to other Xbox titles:"We have to anticipate there’s going to be more change in some of the traditional ways that games are built and distributed. That’s going to… pic.twitter.com/Kd9xF9I8VMAugust 21, 2024
Spencer continued, alluding that the multi-platform push is also part of bringing more money into Microsoft following the publisher's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
"We run a business," he said. "It’s definitely true inside of Microsoft the bar is high for us in terms of the delivery we have to give back to the company because we get a level of support from the company that’s just amazing and what we’re able to go do.
"So I look at this [as], how can we make our games as strong as possible? Our platform continues to grow, on console, on PC, and on cloud. I think it’s just going to be a strategy that works for us."
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will launch as a timed exclusive on December 9 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, before coming to PS5 in Spring 2025.
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