If this is Microsoft tying the dog to the stake, then perhaps the opposite is true, because we have heard this more than once from the Redmond giant.

Thanks to MachineGames, Microsoft finally has an Xbox exclusive game of the year. Admittedly, it’s a temporary exclusive, as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (which could even get a sequel, since it’s not up to the licensee, as we’ve already reported) didn’t turn out badly. Matt Booty, Xbox’s head of game content and studios, addressed the exclusivity in an interview with Variety after the game’s embargo expired:

“We make exclusivity and windowing decisions on a game-by-game basis, and each of our studios is in a slightly different position. There’s also the production schedule of a game, so the decision on the window comes first. We want to make sure there’s a great experience for our Xbox players, and then the gap between when it’s available on PlayStation is as much a production decision as anything else. This is a game that was in production before we even acquired Bethesda,” Booty said.

That’s a bit different from what Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said. Spencer said that there is no red line in terms of which Xbox titles can make it to other platforms. But for Indy, it’s a little more complicated. They started development before Microsoft acquired the studio’s parent company, ZeniMax, and when they did, it became an Xbox exclusive to boost the results of the Xbox Game Pass, but they had to honor their agreement with Disney (LucasFilm Games) to do so. So it was really the licensee that decided to go multiplatform, and that’s what we should expect for the sequel.

But Microsoft is protesting with exclusivity. Their strategy has been to make Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment and Grounded multiplatform, but Booty’s statement suggests that there will be games that won’t migrate to PlayStation…

Source: WCCFTech