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Microsoft Becomes Publisher of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds for Xbox One

Still expected in late 2017.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, month 3 update

Microsoft and Bluehole, Inc., developer of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), have announced an “extended” partnership for the Xbox One version of the battle royale game.

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The Xbox One version, announced at E3 last June, will now be published by Microsoft. Despite the new partnership, the game is still coming to the Xbox Game Preview program, similar to Steam Early Access, sometime in late 2017.

“By partnering with Microsoft, our team believes that we will be able to accelerate console development, while maintaining quality across all platforms, as well as giving us access to vast sales, marketing and publishing resources that will help us reach new fans to welcome to the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds universe,” wrote Chang Han Kim, Executive Producer of PUBG and VP at Bluehole, Inc., in an Xbox Wire post.

Brendan Greene, PlayerUnknown himself, also announced the partnership during the Xbox Gamescom 2017 livestream. The deal includes “all the knowledge that Microsoft have, but we still retain control over development and design decisions” for the game. Bluehole, Inc. is still developer and publisher for the Steam version.

Greene also said that PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has sold eight million copies as of last week, though it had officially crossed seven million last week. According to SteamSpy, the number of owners is currently around 7.3 million.

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Tom Meyer

Follow on Twitter @tomeyerz for musings on video games and things that confound him.

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