Two of the most highly-anticipated Xbox first-party games in the works right now are Bethesda's Indiana Jones and Marvel's Blade, but questions continue to be asked about exclusivity - particularly in terms of the latter following its announcement last week at The Game Awards.
Let's start with Indiana Jones though! You may have missed this earlier in the year, but Indy was actually confirmed to be an Xbox exclusive as part of an FTC hearing back in June, where the court was informed that a "multi-console contract" for the game had been amended when Microsoft acquired Bethesda in 2020.
Speaking to Axios this week, Disney's head of gaming (Sean Shoptaw) addressed this amendment and explained why the company felt confident that it was a fair move for the Indiana Jones game moving forward:
"[With] Xbox still being one of the bigger marketplaces for games, we didn't feel like we were going to be overly exclusionary. We felt like it's still going to reach a broad set of folks, and we felt, financially and strategically for the game, that made sense at the time."
As for Marvel's Blade, the reveal of the game came a few hours after Axios spoke to Shoptaw, so reporter Stephen Totilo wasn't able to get as many details about it prior to the big event. However, he reached out after the show, and was told by Disney that the question was something that Bethesda needed to answer:
That last bit's particularly interesting, as Xbox and Bethesda have remained completely quiet about Marvel's Blade's Xbox exclusivity so far. For whatever reason, nobody seems willing to share whether it's an exclusive as of yet.
So, two very different answers here! Based on Indiana Jones at least, Disney seems happy to work with Xbox on exclusives if the decision is made, but it seems we'll be waiting a while until we find out about Marvel's Blade's future.