It looks like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) will soon no longer be an Xbox One console exclusive. The battle royale phenomenon has recently been rated for PlayStation 4 by the Korean Game Rating Board (via Eurogamer), right when the game is nearing one year of console exclusivity on Xbox One.
When Microsoft announced last year that it would publish the Xbox One version of PUBG, the company never made it clear if it had scored a time exclusivity deal with developer PUBG Corp. In recent years, Microsoft had some high-profile timed exclusives for its Xbox One console such as Rise of the Tomb Raider and Dead Rising 4, and bringing PUBG to Xbox One last year was a pretty good way to make up for the lack of quality first-party games in 2017.
Considering that Sony has the biggest install base with its Playstation 4, it makes sense for PUBG Corp. to brings its game to this console, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see PUBG eventually make its way to the Nintendo Switch as well. PUBG’s free-to-play rival Fortnite: Battle Royale is already available on all platforms, and the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Battlefield 5 will also come with their own battle royale game modes. In other words, PUBG Corp. can’t afford any longer to ignore other gaming consoles.
One last thing to note: PUBG initially launched in preview on Xbox One last December, which allowed the developer to iterate until the launch of the version 1.0 earlier this month. Sony has no similar game preview program on the PlayStation 4, so it will be interesting to see if this version will suffer from the same bugs and frame rate problems that are still affecting the Xbox One version of the game.
Do you think losing PUBG as a Xbox One console exclusive is bad news for Microsoft, or do you think the battle royale game already peaked months ago? Sound off in the comments below
