Sony Interactive Entertainment has claimed that the decision to put its internally-developed baseball title, MLB The Show 21 on Xbox Game Pass was the license holder’s decision.
The move was surprising since the game, which is developed bySony’s San Diego studio, will release on Sony’sPS4andPS5consoles as a standard $60/$70 title.
Now, in a fresh statement issued toInverse, Sony has claimed that the decision to release The Show 21 on Xbox Game Pass was MLB’s decision.
“As part of the goal for this year’s game, MLB decided to bring the franchise to more players and baseball fans,” a PlayStation representative said.
“This decision provides a unique opportunity to further establish MLB The Show as the premier brand for baseball video games.”
Sony was already urged to adopt a multiplatform release strategy for The Show, as part of the multi-year extension to its MLB licensing deal signed in 2019.
The MLB: The Show series of baseball games started in 2006 and has always been exclusive to PlayStation platforms, going back to the original game onPS2andPSP. The 2021 edition marks the first time Sony is bringing the game to a non-PlayStation system.
The Show 21’s addition to Game Pass is significant because of PlayStation’s previous comments about subscription models for new games.
Speaking toGamesIndustry.bizin September last year, SIE president JimRyan claimed a subscription-type model would be unsustainable for PlayStation Studios, because it often sees its game budgets grow to “well over $100 million”.
“We have had this conversation before — we are not going to go down the road of putting new releases titles into a subscription model,” he said.
“These games cost many millions of dollars, well over $100 million, to develop. We just don’t see that as sustainable.”
He added: “We want to make the games bigger and better, and hopefully at some stage more persistent. So putting those into a subscription model on day one, for us, just doesn’t make any sense.
“For others in a different situation, it might well make sense, but for us it doesn’t. We want to expand and grow our existing ecosystem, and putting new games into a subscription model just doesn’t sit with that.”
