Xbox's Matt Booty Talks PS5 Ports, Explains How The Scheduling Works

Image: Updates on the Xbox Business | Official Xbox Podcast

Matt Booty, president of game content and studios at Microsoft, has been doing the rounds with media recently to promote Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and as you'd expect, he's been asked about its upcoming PS5 port.

In an interview with Variety, Booty reiterated that Xbox is still making every decision on a game-by-game basis when it comes to releasing versions for other consoles. In the case of Indiana Jones, the decision was made to delay its PS5 launch until Spring 2025 due to production reasons, as well as wanting to give Xbox players a "great experience".

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

There’s also the production timeline on a game, so the decision on spacing comes there first. 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. This is a game that was in production before we acquired Bethesda, even."

Based on this, it sounds like Microsoft is going to follow a similar pattern with many future releases - launching them first on Xbox and then providing a PS5 release a little later. There are obviously exceptions with things like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 though, where pretty much everyone expected it to launch simultaneously across all platforms.

It's inevitable that the controversy will continue whenever these announcements are made, but don't expect them to stop - Xbox's Phil Spencer even recently mentioned that nothing is off the table when it comes to potential PS5 ports.