Indiana Jones and The Great Circle was previously slated to be an Xbox exclusive. However, that idea has since been scrapped, and the game will also be coming to PlayStation 5. Xbox confirmed this on Tuesday at Gamescom Opening Night Live, where it was revealed that the game will be swinging onto PS5 in early 2025. However, those on PC and Xbox Series X|S will experience the adventure on 9 December, 2024. Today, Phil Spencer spoke about upcoming changes for Microsoft.
This announcement spells out a huge change happening at Xbox, as this is the latest first-party Xbox game to be announced on PS5. This year has already seen some significant announcements for Xbox, including DOOM: The Dark Ages, Sea of Thieves, and Pentiment, which will also be coming to alternative platforms, such as PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
During an interview today at Gamescom, Phil Spencer was asked to comment on Xbox’s latest announcement and the stark change from their previous statement regarding Indiana Jones in February.
“Going to the PlayStation announcement, obviously, last spring we launched four games- two of them on the Switch, four on PlayStation – and we said we are going to learn.” Looking at the statistics side, having the games launch on multiple platforms other than being an Xbox exclusive greatly benefits Microsoft.
“What I see when I look is that our franchise are getting stronger, our Xbox console players this year are as high as they’ve ever been, so I look at it and I say, our player numbers are going up for the console platform, our franchise are as strong as they’ve ever been… and we run a business,” says Phil Spencer at Gamescom.
At the end of the interview, Phil Spencer spoke up about the changes in the gaming industry and the pressure it’s facing as a whole. This year alone has seen thousands of layoffs across all types of companies in the games industry, with Microsoft included in that statistic. Spencer claimed that traditional ways of distributing games would continue to change.
“The last thing that I’ll say is I think as an industry right now, there’s a lot of pressure on the industry. It’s been growing for a long time and now people are looking for ways to grow.” Which, when looking at the statistics of all major gaming consoles and sales, that doesn’t strictly feel true. Xbox in particular has sold the least amount of units, particularly in Europe. In addition, they’ve also been dealing with a complaint filed by the FTC regarding their Game Pass price hike, which doesn’t exactly spell good news for Microsoft.
