Perhaps the biggest announcement coming out of Opening Night Live was Microsoft’s decision to launch MachineGames’ hotly anticipated Xbox game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PlayStation 5 a few months after it launches on Xbox and PC.
It’s the latest first-party Xbox game to make the jump to a rival console, following the release of Obsidian’s Avowed and Grounded, Tango Gameworks’ Hi-Fi Rush, and Rare’s Sea of Thieves earlier in 2024.
During a Microsoft gamescom 2024 livestream, Xbox chief Phil Spencer responded to a question specifically about the decision to bring Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5 and what it means for other upcoming new Xbox releases. Responding, Spencer pointed to the apparently successful release of the four Xbox games on non-Xbox platforms and the boost they’ve enjoyed by going multi-platform.
“Our franchises are getting stronger. Our Xbox console players are as high this year as they’ve ever been,” Spencer said. “So I look at it and I say, okay, our player numbers are going up for the console platform. Our franchises are as strong as they’ve ever been.”
Crucially, Spencer added that Xbox’s multi-platform push is in part about bringing in more money to Microsoft’s gaming business — with the pressure now on to deliver following Microsoft’s eye-watering $69 billion acquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard last year.
“And we run a business,” Spencer said. “It’s definitely true inside of Microsoft the bar is high for us in terms of the delivery we have to give back to the company. Because we get a level of support from the company that’s just amazing and what we’re able to go do.
“So I look at this, how can we make our games as strong as possible? Our platform continues to grow, on console, on PC, and on cloud. It’s just going to be a strategy that works for us.”
Spencer’s comments come amid a tumultuous time for Xbox that has seen 1,900 staff cut from the gaming business this year and multiple studio closures. All the while, sales of Xbox Series X and S have fallen dramatically, Xbox Game Pass growth has stalled, and Microsoft faces a backlash from hardcore Xbox players about its potentially wavering commitment to exclusives and the console business.
Perhaps addressing those concerns, Spencer said fans need to get used to Microsoft’s new way of thinking around the games it makes. Xbox, Spencer said, is trying to grow, and it very much sounds like making Xbox console exclusives is not how the company plans to achieve that going forward.
“The last thing I’ll say, as an industry right now, there’s a lot of pressure on the industry,” Spencer said. “It’s been growing for a long time and now people are looking for ways to grow. Us as fans, as players of games, we just have to anticipate there’s going to be more change in how some of the traditional ways that games were built and distributed, that’s going to change. That’s going to change for all of us. But the end result has to be better games that more people can play. If we’re not focused on that, I think we’re focused on the wrong things.
“So for us as Xbox, health of Xbox, health of our platform, and our growing games, most important things.”
Catch up with everything announced at Opening Night Live.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.