Microsoft says Indiana Jones PS5 launch timing "as much a production decision as anything else"

"We want to make sure there's a great experience for Xbox players."

Xbox studios boss Matt Booty has said the wait for PlayStation 5 owners to play Bethesda's hit new Indiana Jones game is "as much a production decision as it is anything else".

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle - which by all accounts is excellent - is out now on PC and Xbox, including via Game Pass. A Playstation 5 launch was publicly confirmed back in August, though won't actually arrive until the spring of 2025.

So, why the wait? Was six months not enough time to get a PS5 version running well enough? Or was the decision purely business related - that, this side of Christmas, it was an advantage to still keep Indy off Xbox's main console competition?

Speaking to Variety, Booty began by reiterating a line we've heard from Xbox chief Phil Spencer previous - that every game's launch on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles is an individual decision.

"We are very much making the [exclusivity and windowing] decisions on a game by game basis," Booty said. "And each of our studios is in a little bit of a different position."

For Indiana Jones, Booty suggested the extra time taken to launch the PS5 version was designed to ensure its original release for Xbox arrived as a "great experience".

"There's also the production timeline on a game, so the decision on spacing comes there first," Booty continued. "We want to make sure there's a great experience for our Xbox players, and then the gap between [when it becomes available on PlayStation] is as much a production decision as it is anything else."

That said, Booty did finish by noting Indiana Jones was "a game that was in production before we acquired Bethesda, even", which is an interesting point to raise. Was it not in development for PS5 back then?

Back in 2023, Microsoft said it hadn't "pulled any games from PlayStation" after a kerfuffle over comments from Redfall game designer Harvey Smith, who said Microsoft's stance on Redfall's development was "no PlayStation 5" after its takeover.

Of course, this was in the era before Xbox multi-platform publishing was as much of a thing - a stance that only shifted earlier this year when Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment arrived on Nintendo and Sony platforms.

So, which Xbox franchise joins PlayStation next?

"Smart, fun and so very Indiana Jones, The Great Circle is a stealth action tour de force that marks a bold new era for MachineGames," our Katharine wrote in Eurogamer's Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review.