At Gamescom 2024, Phil Spencer made a statement regarding Indiana Jones and The Great Circle coming to PS5 next year. While it will be a timed-console exclusive for Xbox in December, it will soon migrate over in a few months-time.
Jeff Grubb, GamesBeat editor and Giant Bomb content producer, did not buy what Spencer said. Grubb said Xbox has “to do the work to make [the console] feel like a good investment.” These are early signs of Microsoft pulling out of the console game, so is Grubb right in his assessment?
Indiana Jones and The Great Circle to PS5 – Jeff Grubb’s Reaction
Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond appeared on Xbox @ Gamescom 2024 Day 1. During the stream, Spencer talked about Indiana Jones coming to PS5 and thinks the strategy of pushing more games to other platforms will work for Xbox.
When Senior Writer at Kotaku, Ethan Gach, clipped the segment for Twitter/X, Jeff Grubb saw it and did not like how Spencer framed it.
Xbox is easing up on the gas when it comes to winning the console war against PlayStation. Instead of trying to fight against them, Microsoft is likely better off bringing its games to the PS5 and Nintendo Switch to gather more fans of its strong franchises.
Grubb’s assessment is pretty reasonable. Console gamers are more sensitive to whatever platform they choose to play on. They made the choice to game on Xbox, PlayStation, and/or Nintendo because of the games/services it provides. The differences between the trio drives competition and innovation.
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Grubb is making decent points regarding a console feeling like “a good investment.” If consumers are spending hundreds of dollars on a box to play video games, there should be some exclusives and incentives to play on it.
The choice in the market right now for a next-gen experience is between Xbox and PlayStation. The reason why so many players gravitate towards a PS5 over the Xbox Series X|S is because of console exclusives.
Spencer does have a valid argument too. Although he is the CEO of Xbox and wants everything to go right for the company, why can’t more games go to other platforms?
This move to openly have Indiana Jones and the Great Circle come to PlayStation next year is likely Microsoft’s next strategy to stay in the gaming space as one of the big three.
Xbox could have easily announced Indiana Jones for PS5 after the launch on Xbox to drive more sales, but the company instead announced it now alongside the release date. This move could be in good faith to show Microsoft is here to play nice like they always have.
Despite closing down multiple studios in the past year, Xbox is still here to make games for players. Although no one is definitively right, Spencer and Grubb are both two sides of the same coin. One wants to make Xbox games accessible to more people while the other thinks more work should be done to make the Microsoft console worth it.
What do you think of Indiana Jones coming to PS5? Who do you agree with more? Let us know in the comments what you think!
