Whether or not MachineGames and Bethesda’s Indiana Jones title would be a multiplatform release was a frequently asked question (to say the very least) for months following its launch. Ordinarily, you would take that for granted for a game carrying a major IP’s license, but this is, of course, being developed by a first party Xbox studio. Earlier this year, however, it was confirmed that Indiana Jones will indeed be skipping PlayStation and releasing only for Xbox and PC, and according to Disney – parent company of Lucasfilm and owner of the Indiana Jones IP – that makes “financial and strategic sense” for the game.
Speaking in a recent interview with Axios, when asked about Indiana Jones’ Xbox console exclusivity, Disney’s head of gaming Sean Shoptaw said that with Xbox having one of the largest userbases in the industry, the game is “still going to reach a broad set of folks”.
“Xbox still being one of the bigger marketplaces for games, we didn’t feel like we were going to be overly exclusionary,” he said. “We felt like it’s still going to reach a broad set of folks, and we felt, financially and strategically for the game, that made sense at the time.”
Earlier this year, it emerged in court documents from the Microsoft vs FTC trial that Microsoft had decided to take Indiana Jones exclusive in spite of the game being internally projected to sell over 10 million units on PlayStation. The company feels it will be able to cover up those losses through the Indiana Jones title driving increased Game Pass subscriptions and Xbox console sales.
There’s no word yet on when the game will launch, but executive producer Todd Howard has suggested that it could be formally unveiled sometime in 2024.
