A week ago, Sony's president of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida, announced that Sony would focus on first-party titles
because they are "more important".
A week ago, that statement didn't seem much more than an off-handed comment from a Sony exec, but little did we know it was a glimpse at things to come ... After Square Enix's shock announcement at E3 that one of the PS3's biggest-hitters
Final Fantasy XIII would now be going to XBox 360, it became apparent that exclusivity isn't at the front of many third-party developer's minds. And SCEA's president Jack Tretton admitted that Sony can't afford to "write checks for exclusive software".
It seems Shuhei Yoshida was 100% right. It
is becoming harder for consoles to keep a hold of third-party exclusives, even the big-name ones that have always remained "loyal" to one console.
Sony are now planning to follow in the footsteps of Nintendo and will start focusing on their first-party titles. As Yoshida said, exclusive first-party titles are now very important in this-gen.
SCEA president Jack Tretton has aired his feelings on Square Enix's decision to nix PS3 exclusivity for Final Fantasy XIII. During a roundtable chat this morning, Tretton said that he was disappointed by the decision, but not exactly caught off guard.
"Am I disappointed by it? Yes," Tretton told us, adding: "Am I surprised by it? No." He was quick to stress that the game remains a PS3 exclusive in Japan, but that "seeing as there isn't that big of a [PS3] installed base in [there], I don't know how big of a coup that is for us."
Speaking to the concept of paying third parties for exclusives, Tretton said that Sony has "invested so much money in the [PS3] hardware" that it simply "can't write checks for exclusive software."
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Exclusives are very possible and very doable, you just have to shell out the cash for them, and if Sony wants to win the popularity war in the consoles, they need to give people a reason to spend an extra $50-$100 on their console other than the fact that it's got the Playstation logo on it.
Plus, you know. PS3s are damn spendy to makes.
It makes sense that one of the first things to go would be paying people to be loyal to your console for launching. That and reducing hardware cost and improving production volumes.
Microsoft has lost just as many exclusives as Sony, its just that we PS3 owners don't give a crap about them.
Though I suppoose it won't guarantee success. Nintendo has lost... how many exclusives now? All but the first party ones probably. Including the FF franchise even!
Actually Sony probably deserves this. :/
Exclusives only perpetuates console wars and mean that game companies lose money by keeping them exclusive. Bad for the video game communtiy. Suck it up guys.
What a load of shit.
Though I guess that doesn't matter, they're cheap bastards and more or less proved they're losing the war.
I also think it's not that Sony can't afford it, but that they are against the idea of paying for what they consider loyalty to their brand.
Sony does seem to be focusing on other things with the PS3, such as Home and of course, Blu-Ray. They need something effective to keep up with the other two competitors, though. Hopefully Home is worth the wait.
But I laugh at this statement of how they don't have enough to keep it. Stop lying Sony.
I prefer to see companies not beat around the bush just to save face. Which is what I feel happens a lot.
Until the PS3 finally makes a profit and can afford to pay for its exclusives, blue ray is its life line.
"This story is followed by the tragic suicide of Shuhei Yoshida"
I must admit I thought they would have put the effort in to keep the title, it's a well respected (if not amusing) name and should reap a steady profit.
Why they waited this long is beyond me.
The reason M$ finds it so easy to pay for exclusives is that 1) its already turned a profit on the 360, and 2) they're not as an expansive company as Sony is, so they can concentrate more funds on their gaming departments.
This doesn't bother me much at all, because a) I'm not an RPG/Final Fantasy fan and b) If Sony are focusing on first-party titles then that can only be a good thing, as they have some fantastic developers, IMO better than Microsoft.