Maybe I’m just out of the loop, but I had no idea Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was an Xbox exclusive. Maybe it’s because I’ve had a lot of deadlines recently, or that I’ve been too busy conducting cool interviews and [redacted], but this news just passed me by. If you want to know how busy I’ve been, I haven’t even watched any of The Game Awards yet. The highlight of any self-respecting gamer’s festive period passed me by like a Witcher in the night. For shame.
While I found out every winner and trailer from The Game Awards via work colleagues, being generally online, or reading TheGamer dot com, it took a lot longer for me to realise that Indiana Jones was locked to Microsoft’s console for the time being.
Indiana Jones is also available on PC, but that never seems to count for these ‘exclusives’.
The Great Circle surprised me so much with its immersive sim mechanics and engrossing story that I immediately texted one of my best friends to recommend it. I’m going to be playing it as my ‘Christmas Game’ this year, and I figured he’d enjoy it, too. I was so excited to have found a game that fit his tastes so well that I didn’t even think to check what platforms it was available on. Sure, I’m playing through Game Pass on my Xbox Series X and he has a PS5, but only Sony still does exclusives these days, right? Right?
As I’m certain you – and everyone else in the world – are aware, Indiana Jones is not available on the PlayStation 5 at present. Scheduled to come in “early 2025”, my pal was immensely disappointed to find that he couldn’t play the game I’d just sent him 18 paragraphs about. Now, he’s not going to run out and buy an Xbox Series X right before Christmas, but it got me thinking about Xbox’s strategy, its hits and misses, and the power of word of mouth.
Indiana Jones and the Sleeper Hit
Indiana Jones has proved a sleeper hit so far. After the middling reception to Star Wars Outlaws, there wasn’t much excitement for the next triple-A IP tie-in. I probably wouldn’t have tried it without Game Pass, and it’s my job to play these sorts of things! But slowly, mostly through word of mouth, it’s dragging itself into positive conversations.
The Great Circle has a lot going for it. I’ve already recommended it to one friend and likely will to many more. It’s got the slick cinematics, triple-A presentation, and IP behind it to be approachable. But it goes far deeper into mechanical complexity than you’d expect, and tells a great adventure story while it does so. 1000xResist this is not, but recommending my Warzone-addled mates a visual novel about racism, pandemics, and teenage angst is not going to go well.
The more people who talk about Indiana Jones, the better things get for Microsoft. Obviously. Maybe it’ll sell a few extra consoles before Christmas, maybe a few more Game Pass subscriptions will fly out of the digital door. I’m still not convinced this strategy has legs, but after numerous exclusive misses, this hit is doubly important.
Indiana Jones And The Exclusivity Deal
Halo Infinite. Miss. Redfall. Miss. Starfield. Miss. Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga. Niche game, middling success. Stalker: Heart of Chornobyl. Janky, buggy, probably a miss. Hi-Fi Rush. Success, studio shuttered for no apparent reason. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, a surefire hit every yea- oh, wait, miss. If Microsoft wanted to bring people to its platform through hot exclusives, then it’s failed, because most of its games flopped. There are more to come – Avowed, South of Midnight, and Fable immediately come to mind – but the deal hasn’t been working. What was encouraging players to pick up an Xbox over a PlayStation?
While Sony’s exclusive output this generation has been lacklustre in terms of quantity, players loved Returnal, Kratos fans lapped up Ragnarok, and more recently Astro Bot has swept up Game of the Year awards left, right, and centre.
None of this generation’s Xbox games could match the successes of these titles. Indiana Jones likely won’t have the mass appeal to either. But it could get the boulder rolling and force its competitor to adapt, or else run desperately out of the tomb they’ve been robbing in the name of archaeology.
Indiana Jones And The Is It Time To Put Game Pass On PlayStation?
I think we’re long past the days of full-on console wars. Sony is still playing the exclusivity game, but Xbox seems to be timing its exclusives before releasing them on the rival console. Gamers will likely declare that Sony has ‘won’ this generation because of the quality of its exclusives, and Indiana Jones is unlikely to move the needle. However, there could be another strategy.
Is it time to put Game Pass on PlayStation? This would be a remarkable decision, eschewing the traditional divide between the two rival consoles to potentially benefit both. Sony sells more PlayStation consoles. Microsoft sells more Game Pass subscriptions. However, there’s a catch.
Without Game Pass being Xbox’s biggest exclusive (again, PC notwithstanding), why would players pick up an Xbox console? When I had to choose to sell my PS5 or Series X, I chose based on Game Pass alone. If – and this is a big if – Microsoft pivoted to a digital-only gaming fare, that is stopped making consoles full stop, then it could work out for it, too.
We don’t even have Game Pass on Steam yet, unfortunately.
This is a wild theory. I’m not certain it would be a sensible business decision for either party. Would Sony lose out on full-price game sales? Would the console revenue drive Microsoft to bankruptcy? But it’s something that I’ve been pondering since Indiana Jones was released. It would benefit players, for sure, but corporations often don’t think like that. It’s all about the bottom line.
Whether Microsoft makes a left-field pivot to put Game Pass on PlayStation or not, Indiana Jones is the first stepping stone to having exclusive games that rival Sony’s. Will it be as big as The Last of Us? Unlikely. Will the PlayStation release kill any benefit that Xbox sales could see from it? Potentially. But Xbox finally has a great game, and that’s a start.
3:50
Next
Indiana Jones Is To Xbox What Ghost Of Tsushima Is To PlayStation
Indiana Jones being an old-fashioned game is absolutely fine (and what we need).