Well, yes, it is real, just unannounced. The Xbox Series S is probably the worst kept secret at this point. In addition to the rumors, there’s some other interesting stuff going on pre-Gamescom.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
Typically, we have “exclusive” fallout from the console war which forces the hand of the consumer to purchase all consoles to play all the games they love. Many hardcore gamers are into first person shooters like Halo and Gears of War but also like their Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy fixes. In years prior, you’d have to invest in Microsoft and Sony’s solutions to get your fix. Now things are changing.
With these third party developers playing neutral in the war on consoles, Microsoft and Sony are forced to rely on near “first-party” titles to keep their army strong. Metal Gear Solid is a Sony exclusive and Gears of War and Halo have been Microsoft’s hype babies for a year or so now. The problem? Many of these exclusive games are not divisions, subsidiaries or in any way under the wing of the console makers.
Nintendo holds exclusive rights to almost all their hard hitting titles. Mario, Link, Zelda, Samus Aran and all their mascot style characters are designed, developed and marketed under the name “Nintendo.” These characters are all part of Nintendo’s lineup of solid best selling titles including the Metroid, Zelda and Super Mario Bros. series and all their spin-offs. Nintendo has the power to re-implement their characters into games like Mario Party, Mario Kart, Links Crossbow, Metroid Prime, Metroid Pinball and a huge array of other first party titles.
Microsoft and Sony must continue to play nice with Konami, Bungie, and Epic Games to keep their exclusivity. What happens if one of these developers “betrays” their console and starts shipping multi-platform?
This week Jonah and Jordan go it alone without Paul, which is unfortunately since the Gaming Flashback is the classic Nintendo 64 title Paper Mario. It might be just as well as the events of the last week made the crew ramble on about the industry at length, making the post much longer than usual.
This week’s impressive news items:
Lots of Reader Feedback, but no Question of the Week this week – just too much show.
Yoichi Wada of Square Enix has let the cat out of the bag. The cat is Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 and it will be simultaneously released with the PlayStation 3 version. This may be an end to an exclusive era for Sony as all their big brands jump to non-exclusion.
This is probably a result of gamers slow adoption of the PlayStation 3 hardware for various issues, one being cost. Personally I think Sony’s move to say “no price cut” in our near future is a grand mistake. It is well understood that they want profitability over quantity but you’re losing your exclusives to a broader audience.
Each generation of consoles brings new industry trends and, for now, exclusive games from third party developers is too risky when you look at overall cost to produce a block buster title like Final Fantasy XIII. Consider the sales of GTA IV, although they were in the millions, imagine how low it would have been if they only released on the PS3. They’d might have actually lost money on the game.
Square Enix can see the writing on the wall, that writing says “ship on as many mediums as possible.” Gamers are split between consoles with a huge segment on Wii and Xbox 360, if you can at least ship on one of those consoles along with the PS3 you’ll do better financially.
(Thanks, Kotaku)
