So the fallout of Xbox’s gamescom bombshell is continuing to reverberate around the internet today. If you missed it, Xbox execs opted to have the indefatigable Geoff Keighley drop the news that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will indeed be coming to PlayStation 5, and in the next 1-2 quarters following the Xbox and PC versions.
Why the big deal? Well it’s worth watching the video above to see just how it was announced. Effectively a “one more thing”, which is usually reserved for the biggest and tastiest news. OK it probably ranks as pretty big news, but it’s an announcement that has effectively alienated a large portion of fans that were previously hotly anticipating the game.
We also had the delightful “Business Update” earlier in the year, when Phil Spencer was directly asked (albeit in a pre-agreed fashion) whether Starfield or Indiana Jones would be going to PlayStation / Switch as part of the initial batch of “just 4 games”. He said they would not. Of course, he is correct in that the 4 games were Pentiment, Grounded, Sea of Thieves and Hi-fi Rush. And subsequently, he confirmed they may still go multiplatform in the future. But given Indiana Jones is not even out yet, it is hard to believe he didn’t know at that point that it would be going to PS5.
However, in Phil’s favour, the FTC documents also mention that Indiana Jones was a PC/Xbox exclusive:
This was June 2023, so of course there was time for things to change. But it is hard to believe that the performance of the 4 games really was enough to change their minds about Indiana Jones being exclusive as, with the exception of Sea of Thieves, we’ve not really heard too much about sales performance of the other titles.
Where does this leave us? Well it’s possible there’s some sort of licensing issue with Indiana Jones being a Disney property – but you would have expected us to know about this in June 2023 if that was the case. The exclusivity window of just 3-6 months is very short by the previous standards of these things, so much so that it begs the question why bother? Are they trying to hit a launch for the PS5 Pro (let’s imagine how that goes down with Xbox fans). Did they just try to pick the shortest possible exclusivity window so they can still call it Xbox/PC exclusive while maximising revenue? It seems like the latter is most likely, but we’re speculating at this point. Should we expect the same from Blade? Why has Hellblade II, a game whose prequel was on PlayStation, not gone to PS5 yet?
These decisions are so inconsistent as to be baffling, and questions will continue to be raised until clarity is given. On one hand Microsoft seem to be trying to placate their base and keep long term fans happy, yet on the other they let Geoff Keighley announce the PS5 version of Indiana Jones as if it should be celebrated. In all, it’s just a further sign of Microsoft and Xbox’s confused messaging when it comes to future plans for the platform. The “case by case” approach continues and will generate headlines until concrete messaging and boundaries are put in place. One thing’s for sure, this is a sea change moment: the first AAA release from Xbox that has been announced as going to PlayStation before it has launched.