Bethesda has confirmed in court that MachineGames’ Indiana Jones is no longer a cross-platform game and Microsoft has ported it to an Xbox exclusive on consoles.
Bethesda’s Pete Hines has been called into court, in the case between the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Microsoft over the purchase of Activision Blizzard, to confirm that the initial agreement with Disney was to develop an Indiana Jones game for various platforms. His answer was yes.
Then FTC lawyers asked Heinz if Microsoft had bought Bethesda, and Disney asked if this would affect the platforms on which Indiana Jones would be released. His answer was yes.
Hines confirmed that the deal with Bethesda has changed to make Indiana Jones exclusive to Xbox and PC consoles, as it debuted on Game Pass. According to him, Bethesda will decide on a case-by-case basis which games will be exclusive to Microsoft platforms.
According to Hines, games released only on the Xbox and PC platforms have simplified development, in part because they need to be tested on fewer platforms, which is one of the reasons why Indiana Jones became an Xbox exclusive on consoles.
The decision to release the game only on Xbox and PC, which debuted on Game Pass, pleased Bethesda and followed orders from Microsoft that it would lose PlayStation sales but have a wide release on Game Pass.
Hines was called in to talk about Indiana Jones changing to an Xbox exclusive and how this is another example of Activision’s future after being bought by Microsoft.
Q Before acquiring MSFT, Disney had a deal to make an Indiana Jones game with ZeniMax.
After the acquisition, Disney brought up the issue of which platforms it would be released on.
They have questions, yes.
(Indiana Jones is now an Xbox exclusive.)
– Derek Strickland (@DeekeTweak) June 22, 2023
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