Harmonix has a pretty good philosophy here, in my opinion. Put the customer first and let everyone get a piece of whatever music they choose.
We prefer not to sign exclusive deals with artists because while it seems like the competitive “business” thing to do, in the long run, it’s really not good for anyone. We think we should be working to get more music out to more people.
This move has lost them Aerosmith and potentially Metallica, but overall, I think it’s the right way to do things. What do you think?
In a major change of heart, Kaz Hirai has said that Sony may consider paying for third party exclusive titles for the PS3. Microsoft has been practicing this method since the first Xbox came about, while Sony has held its stance that it just isn’t necessary. But the times they are a changin.
King Kaz let the info slide in an interview with Three Speech. When Phil Harrison joined Sony way back in the day, he enacted the policy of not paying for third party exclusive titles. Now that Phil jumped ship to Atari/Infogrames, it might be time to revisit that policy. The PS3 has had a less than stellar start and there haven’t been many good third party exclusive titles on the system. Paying for some might sell more consoles and bring Sony back into the fight here in North America where they’re trailing Microsoft in the console wars.
We’ll see what happens over the rest of the year if this does occur and if it pays off for Sony.
No one really knew what Microsoft had planned for the rest of 2008… until now. At today’s press event in San Francisco, Microsoft let out a bunch of plans for their upcoming games this year. We already knew all about Gears of War 2, but today we got confirmation on a few other titles.
Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, the follow up to the first critical hit, is set to hit store shelves in September. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is set for release in November. It’s going to be a big year for Rare. Other games coming this year include Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One on May 21st, Ninja Gaiden 2 on June 3rd, Too Human on August 19th, Fable 2 this Holiday.
Microsoft has a pretty decent lineup for the rest of the year for the Xbox 360. I don’t think it holds up to the insane end of the year we had in 2007, but it’s still fairly solid, especially for these exclusive titles.
The fanboys are at it again over the news released recently that Haze, the anticipated shooter will be only coming to the PS3. There were grumblings that the can may have a future release on the 360, but those have recently been quashed. Furthermore, Mass Effect 2 looks to be a Xbox 360 exclusive as well, but only for a little while. The space based RPG which made waves for all the right and wrong reasons, looks to finish its anticipated trilogy on MS, but will then soon go to the PS3 says Bioware. It looks as if some developers are willing to spread the wealth while other want to stay on a single console. That ethos seems like a death knell for sales figures.
EA will remain the only kid in town to make NFL games through the 2012/2013 season, as they’ve extended their contract with the football league and Player’s Association.
I wish this would have gone away instead of getting extended. Since the exclusive agreement started, Madden hasn’t exactly been the most innovative game on the market. Being that no one else can make an NFL game, creativity has been a bit stifled with no competition.
So what are your thoughts? Are you happy that EA extended this agreement, or do you wish it went away so 2K could bring their NFL games back?
In a recent interview with Capcom’s VP of Marketing there was some discussion over Third Party Exclusivities and where they would be heading over time. As everyone is aware nowadays, exclusivity to a specific console is quickly dwindling with third party developers. What was once a deciding factor in what console would be purchased has now become a gray area where the highest bidder wins.
The only true exclusives now are from the console manufacturers themselves, i.e. Nintendo and Sony making their flagship titles. The supposed main drivers for exclusives are gameplay functionality and costs, i.e. if the controls make sense on your system and the costs for porting are fine then giddy up and jump on board.
Recently there have been many mergers and acquisitions. Is this a sign of the times that small development studios are out and the large conglomerates win? Will the video game era die in a world of corporate America? What happened to the days of Pong and Tetris, where some guy in his basement made a game and just unleashed it on the world? Now we need blockbuster budgets with voice acting and CGI in order to sell a game.
Haze, the new sci-fi first person shooter from Ubisoft, which was once set as a timed exclusive for the PS3 is now fully exclusive.
Ubisoft confirmed to Gamespot UK that the PS3 version is currently the only one in development, no plans to bring it to any other platforms at a later date.
Today, Ubisoft said that currently no other versions in development, and although it was still leaving the door open in the future for “new partnerships,” currently the game is indeed only planned for the PS3. A spokesperson said, “The official statement on PC and Xbox 360 is that these platforms are not confirmed.”
The Web sites of Free Radical, the Official Haze site, and Ubisoft site, all now only list the PS3 version of the game.
All of the trailers for this game have looked pretty good. I’m not a big FPS fan, but I’ll give it a look and see how it goes.
LA Noire, the upcoming Rockstar franchise that’s set to to take the world by storm, is now coming exclusively to the PS3. This comes in a press release filed by parent company Take Two yesterday (the same press release that let out the GTA4 delay).
Take Two describes the games as:
“[a] ground-breaking next generation crime thriller. L.A Noire is an interactive detective story set during the classic late 1940’s noir period in a perfectly recreated Los Angeles before freeways, with a post-war backdrop of corruption, drugs and jazz. L.A. Noire will truly blend cinema and gaming with action, detection and complex storytelling that will draw players into an open-ended challenge to solve a series of gruesome murders.”
Sounds like a winner to me. Something to note, this is NOT the new exclusive franchise that Jack Tretton talked about for the PS3. Sony has confirmed a few times this is the fact. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what that new franchise will be.
At E3, Game Head got a chance to talk to Jack Tretton about losing GTA4 as a PlayStation exclusive. In the interview, Jack revealed that Rockstar would be developing a new, exclusive franchise for the PS3 after Grand Theft Auto 4. Some are speculating this will be LA Noire, but Jack somewhat shot that down.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what comes of this new exclusive franchise. I hope it’s not more ping pong.
Sorry Xbox 360 fanboys, Metal Gear Solid 4 is still a PS3 exclusive title. It was rumored that Microsoft would drop a bomb on the gaming community during it’s E3 press event stating that MGS4 would be multi-platform, but alas, nothing was mentioned.
“[Kazumi] Kitaue is constantly trying to force Kojima to drop the game’s PS3 exclusivity, which Hideo refuses point blank to do. Trust me MGS4 will be a PS3 exclusive for for months at least.”
Good for you Kojima. You have to love developers that stick to their guns (no pun intended).
We're like Spaceballs... we're making Loot Ninja everything. Coming soon we'll have hats, shirts, hoodies, possibly banana hammocks if one Editor has his way...
Check out the shirt prototypes here and the hats here
