While it is no longer too surprising to see games from Xbox Game Studios released on consoles like the Nintendo Switch, games developed and called by Sony coming out on Microsoft consoles are not on the streets. But it is precisely one of them which is about to be released on all the Xbox consoles currently on the market.
Read also: Sony / Microsoft partnership: A surprise for the PlayStation division
Exclusive to PlayStation consoles since 2006, the MLB The Show series (the only MLB baseball simulation available on consoles since 2014) is about to arrive on Xbox consoles for the very first time. MLB The Show 21 will indeed release on Xbox Series X | S, Xbox One, PS5 and PS4 on April 20.
The news is all the more striking as the game is said by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and developed by the Sony Interactive Entertainment San Diego Studio. It is therefore a question of a PlayStation First Party game coming out on competing consoles.
And to get it right, the Japanese glove announced that MLB The Show 21 will be compatible with cross-platform multiplayer and cross progression. This means, for example, that PS5 players will be able to play online against Xbox One players. Or that a game started on a PS4 can be continued on an Xbox Series X.
Baseball for all
As a reminder, the MLB (American professional baseball league) and Sony had announced the signing of a multi-year extension of their partnership at the end of 2019 around the creation of MLB video games. And under the terms of the latter, SIE would offer MLB The Show games on multiple platforms from 2021. The commitment is therefore respect.
Long reluctant to offer its games elsewhere than on its consoles and allow cross play with competing machines, Sony continues to gradually change its shoulder gun. After the arrival of PlayStation exclusives on PC, the announcement of the release of MLB The Show 21 on Xbox consoles is therefore further proof that times are changing and that yesterday’s barriers are no longer those of today. .
Does this news surprise you? Do you think other upcoming titles will experience a similar situation? Or do you think we are dealing with a specific case involving the involvement of a professional sports league which certainly wanted to increase its revenue streams by maximizing the potential sales of its official video games? Give us your opinion in the comments below.
