MLB The Show 21 in the Xbox Game Pass: an MLB decision according to Sony | Xbox One
We learned a few days ago that MLB The Show 21 is coming to Xbox Game Pass in April. The arrival of the game in the subscription service was all the more surprising as it is a game developed by SCE San Diego Studio, a development studio owned by Sony. But according to the Japanese manufacturer and publisher, the decision does not come from them.
Reach a wider audience with Xbox Game Pass
While the game will be sold for 70 dollars on PlayStation, MLB The Show 21 will be available as soon as it is released on April 20 in the Xbox Game Pass catalog offered at around ten dollars per month. Baseball fans should therefore think twice between enjoying the full price game or switching to Xbox with the Xbox Game Pass, which offers several hundred games accessible every month.
So how is it possible that a game developed by PlayStation and exclusive to the platform for many years finally ends up in the competing service? According to PlayStation, the decision did not come from them, but rather from MLB, according to Inverse.
As part of this year’s game goals, MLB has decided to bring the franchise to more baseball players and fans. This move provides a unique opportunity to establish MLB The Show as the premier baseball video game brand.
If the arrival of the game in the Game Pass is surprising, its availability on Xbox is less so since we knew since the end of 2019 that the franchise would no longer be reserved for PlayStation, which Phil Spencer was delighted at the time. MLB then announced an agreement between it and Sony San Diego Studio which runs over several years. MLB The Show 22 should therefore also be released on Xbox, and possibly also in the Xbox Game Pass next year.
According to analyst Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis, it is above all a question for MLB of reaching a much larger audience, and certainly of taking advantage of this much larger audience to take advantage of in-game monetization at the expense of unit sales of the game. With more than 18 million subscribers, and certainly the vast majority in the USA, the Xbox Game Pass is therefore a place of choice to reach a large audience at once. Sony had no interest in releasing the game in Game Pass, so it’s just a strategic move by whoever owns the franchise, MLB.
