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)
Great podcast! Talk about information overload. I learned a lot, but liked it anyway.
CyberPunk 2077 looks pretty awesome, but now that you guys all gave it the seal of approval I’m extra psyched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2kIfS6fb8
Thanks for the heads up about the free trial of Unreal Champions. That offer was extended through this weekend so there’s still time to pick it up on Steam. It is a ton of fun. plus cool NIN music.
Keep up the good work, cyberpunks.
HI guys.
Thanks a lot for this huge episode! was a little bit work to listen to it, but was very informative π
I want to look at all the shows from every single publisher and figure out, which game i will spectate (is this the right word?). I pre-ordered BF5, becausei want to play it with my friends. In addition i will pre-order Kingdom Hearts 3. My friends want me to pre order Cyberpunk as well, but i did not even play Witcher 3 to know if i like the engine and graphics .. but i love cyberpunk / steampunk π …. letΒ΄s see …i will have some months before the games come out π
My friends also backed this Star Citizen game 2 years ago …. so their decisions are not always the best ones π
So, thanks again for this huge work on this episode π
Your loyal listener,
Ralf