Microsoft's Indiana Jones twist: It's back to being a PlayStation game, too
Plus: Lots of announcements from Gamescom, a free-to-play pivot and more.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the biggest 2024 release from Microsoft’s army of game studios, will still release on Xbox and PC this year but will also come out for PlayStation in spring 2025, the company said today.
That essentially means the game, from Microsoft-owned Bethesda studio MachineGames, will be a time-limited exclusive—for four or so months—to PC players and Xbox owners.
What a difference a years makes.
And what a difference a decade makes, too.
Flashback first to June 2023: On the witness stand over the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, a Bethesda executive testifies that Indiana Jones was going to be multi-console until Microsoft renegotiated the deal with Indy rights-holder Disney.
That’s no longer the case.
Flashback to August 2014: Microsoft announces that the next Tomb Raider will be published by Xbox, panicking PlayStation fans who’d long followed the series, though Microsoft soon acknowledges that it’ll only be a timed exclusive.
Back then (either time), the deals were meant to draw players to the Xbox console. Now, it’s not so simple.
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