Its been quite a ride, or as many gamers feel, a stressful time with Sony and how they operated with exclusives. Many PS gamers around the globe wished and wanted Sony to get off their ass and pay for exclusive rights. Well after losing GTA4, DMC4 and other once-exclusive titles, it seems they finally are "re-evaluating paying for PS3 exclusives".
However Kaz Hirai also states this will also be discussed by the publishers and that the exclusive deal would have to be their decision not Sony's.
But knowing Sony will be paying for exclusive, if they agree, would ensue no more exclusives being lost to the competition.
Q: Whats your policy on securing games exclusively for the PS3 from third parties? Because Phil Harrison changed the policy towards not paying for exclusives. Is that still the case?
KH: Thats something that we can re-evaluate, but its also something that the publishers need to make a business decision on. Ultimately, it becomes a dialogue if it makes sense for them to go exclusive, thats a business decision that they need to make. But generally speaking, because of the investments that publishers need to make in this round of hardware, its going to be more difficult for publishers to make that decision. Where we come into the picture is to have that dialogue with the third-party publishers, to say: OK, what can we do together if its not exclusive that makes the PS3 version of the game more compelling for the consumers than any other version? Lets face it all the games are coming out on a Blu-ray disk which has 50Gb capacity, so lets put in some making-of content, or maybe additional levels. Also, it really becomes important for the first-party studios to really come up with some envelope-pushing, genre-defining content.
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Waits for the Insomniac, Inconito, Team ICO and Suckerpunch buyouts to happen after the new policy goes through, they need to have a line up of developers that matches the teams that Microsoft have under their Game Studio's brand.
Although its about time they re think their strategy. However MS can always out bid Sony.
I think it's a good idea, but it's a bit too late.
So many gamers who don't understand the business expected PS3 to come out and immediately beast the competition, based on the strength of the PlayStation2. PS2 sold 120 million units over 7 years, and its still selling. Its not logical to think that PS3 would put up these same numbers so soon, however I feel that with all the bad press, the "overpriced" PS3, with the lack of software support, has done a decent job of hanging around, so to speak. With what looked like a landslide for the 360 early on, Microsoft really hasn't pulled away as much as I think they needed to, and if Sony is anywhere near them by the time this year is done, I think they have a great chance in the future of moving in front.
My mistake iLL, forgot about that while posting potential titles that might go multiplat.
It doesn't really matter when it happen, but the fact it DID happen. Those titles were either exclusive or timed. And Sony lost what benefits it could have with them. Believe it not, if they stayed how they were the PS3 would be doing so much better than what it is doing.
I mean Saints Row was exclusive through circumstance there was no PS3 so it had to be on Xbox 360, same with Condemned and Lost Planet... The only real exclusive Microsoft have lost is BioShock but atleast they can say, we had it for a year before you guys...
Sony can't, they lost their exclusives long before any Playstation gamer got to play them...
As for Haze Microsoft didn't lose it, it just went from multiplatform to single platform and i think right now Microsoft are glad the game didn't come out on the 360.