one is helping develop and publish a title and in most cases new ip and the other is throwing money at a publisher/developer who is making an established ip to keep it away from other platforms. i will let you you figure out which is which.
Sony and MS on the term 'Exclusivity'
- Thread starter sn00zer
- Start date
one is helping develop and publish a title and in most cases new ip and the other is throwing money at a publisher/developer who is making an established ip to keep it away from other platforms. i will let you you figure out which is which.
travisbickle
Member
Interesting to see how it pans out in the current "need-to-know and will find out" attitude of the gaming community. If MS manage to keep us in the dark up to the XB1 release next year I'll be surprised.
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
Do you see anybody bitching about Sunset Overdrive? Tomb Raider is a completely different scenario. It wasn't announced as an exclusive and everybody assumed it was multiplat out of the gate. The outrage comes from the fact that Microsoft literally snatched it out of our waiting hands.
Darkstorne
Member
Exactly. A lot of the anger is directed at Crystal Dynamics and Square too, for taking the bribe despite the game having been available to pre-order for PS4 and PC since it was first announced at E3, and then saying "Hey, we still love you guys too! You can play the Definitive Edition of the last game instead!"
If course they didn't. But they also probably didn't expect things to turn quite so sour. When you have the gaming press criticising them for not being open with them, then you need to consider changing your approach.
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
No they haven't, not like this. What they did with the "to be clear..." part of their conference yesterday was an obvious response to the MS debacle earlier.
In the past conferences, Sony has been VERY muddy about "timed" or "coming first", "console debut", ect with their Playstation games on stage. They practically coined the term "console debut" the last couple conferences from my recollection. Heck, the whole Diablo thing where anyone refused to answer about an XB1 version still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Both companies are extremely guilty of muddying the waters, and it's getting a bit old.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I didn't think we had confirmation of TR being timed.
It's only 8 am but that's probably the worst strawman I've seen on GAF. What an epicly lazy dismissive post. Kudos.
Opus Angelorum
Member
This assumes a sequel was always going to be made.
Insomniac are worth nothing to some now, so it was never an issue.
lol
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
You clearly don't frequent SO threads. They're full of trolls talking about money hats.
That poster has a history of shitty fanboy posts. No surprise there.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Name a situation directly comparable where Sony have bought exclusivity on a Triple A historically multiplatform series?
Sony hardly ever does this kind of shit any more because they instead invest inwards in building their own brands and studios. MS are paying to keep the game out of PS4 and PC owners' hands.
Nobody minds Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break or Scalebound existing. People aren't against Xbox exclusives in general, it's just the circumstances surrounding this particular situation are dumb and shitty, and the messaging is laughably bad from both MS and CD.
In Service
Member
But of course, everyone should now listen to the gaming press. The last bastion of independant free speech in the gaming industry....
Well those trolls would be wrong (as almost all trolls most assuredly are). SO is an exclusive game built by Insomniac and published by Microsoft right? Nothing wrong with that.
Insomniac's worked with Sony for years and has seen its main franchise lose steam on the PS3, nothing crazy about them working with someone else.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I know that, but to make a sweeping generalization while dismissing others of doing the same is a bit silly no?
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
The specific game is beside the point. Name any third-party Xbox exclusive: Ryse, Dead Rising, Titanfall, Quantum Break, Scalebound, etc. You get people complaining about moneyhats but this kind of reaction is unprecedented. Tomb Raider is a very special case.
Well, in a very literal sense, yes. But it's a very interesting nothing.
Also, I should add: I suspect this might be slightly dependent on another factor. That is, Microsoft may have only secured temporarily exclusivity for now but are still working to lock it down as permanent. That may, in turn, be dependent on other components (Performance? Assistance in development? Feedback?). That's another reason to hedge bets with how you're phrasing things right now, yet might still ultimately result in permanent exclusivity down the line.
EASTC0AST_GH05T
Member
PS4 has no games tho is what they are sayingI guess this is as good a place as any to post this.
Updated from 4 months ago.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Lol, really?! You think there was any danger of Tomb Raider 2 - bearing in mind the first game sold six million copies! - not being made if MS didn't step in with a money hat?
Show me the last triple-A game that sold six million copies and didn't get a sequel (Half Life 2 is literally the only other example I can think of), and then come back with a better argument.
Exploratory
Banned
Serious post? I saw a ton of people bitching about Sunset Overdrive.
Anyone with common sense would not believe such a joke. The new TR being xbone only is like the silliest joke I mean thats like hurting your IP. PS4 is the best selling current gen system and TR has always had a PC follow up. Business wise it would be the dumbest thing. This short term deal works for both MS and SE but it would not for Square long term.
It was announced, multiplatform, at E3.
edit: yeah seems no platforms were announced (except being at xbox's conference).
Opus Angelorum
Member
Well I stand corrected, don't remember that.
I've said a few times that I think Sony's careful wording was in response to the MS conference and the Tomb Raider reveal. Sony deliberately did their conference at E3 2013 quite a bit later than MS, and they used that time to react to their competitor's announcements and used very careful language to draw contrasts and comparisons between them. They had plenty of time yesterday to track the negative response online and respond accordingly.
The dude from Bungie stumbling over his explanation of timed exclusivity made me think it seemed like a last minute addition.
There's a difference between port begging, which is banned, and a discussion of a change in platform for a release, which currently has a 100+ page thread. There will always be people who complain about every console exclusives because this is the internet and there will always be people who complain about anything, but I didn't see anything on nearly the same scale either. I mean, unless I just wasn't looking in the right threads.
The dude from Bungie stumbling over his explanation of timed exclusivity made me think it seemed like a last minute addition.
There's a difference between port begging, which is banned, and a discussion of a change in platform for a release, which currently has a 100+ page thread. There will always be people who complain about every console exclusives because this is the internet and there will always be people who complain about anything, but I didn't see anything on nearly the same scale either. I mean, unless I just wasn't looking in the right threads.
great. I give up....
it was announced but not multiplatform so i would like to correct you on that. either way only a crazy person would think a sequel wasn't going to be made after selling 6 million.
We can't dismiss people's arguments because other people are shitty posters if that's what I'm inferring from your post.
The point is I hope both of these companies continue to get better at being explicit about their exclusives. It helps lessen confusion, it helps PC gamers know whether a game like No Man's Sky is coming out on their platform day and date, etc.
Yeah I wouldn't bother. The fact the game took preorders on other platforms apparently isn't evidence enough.
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
People will bitch about anything. My point was that Tomb Raider is a much different case than your average third party exclusive, and the reaction is justified.
Was it explicitly announced as multiplatform then? I only recall it being teased - in MS's conference - and I recall a lot of assumptions about it being multiplatform, but I don't see an explicit statement.
That said, with the recent news, it's very hard to search for stuff said around E3.
The fact that MS did not say it was exclusive when they played it at their conference pretty much confirms it wasn't already exclusive at the time. That's just logic.
But perhaps they had already approached SE with an offer that was being considered and that's why no platforms were announced at all.
Shpeshal Nick
aka Collingwood
I agree.
I posted almost right after the announcement that I was fairly confident it was timed. But if you look at it purely from Microsofts point of view, working under the assumption there's a money hat at play, surely you can see why they will most likely not allow word to get out that it's timed no?
Otherwise they're literally throwing money down the toilet.
I'd love to see that in principle, but I can't help but think that the confusion absolutely aids them; where's the incentive to explicitly say "If you wait, you can purchase this game on a rival system instead, negating the need to purchase our own unless you're impatient".
Well, yes, that's the sort of situation I had in mind. These things could easily be fluid, it's important to not consider it in terms of absolutes.
As I said upthread, my suspicion is that this is currently pencilled in as a timed exclusive, but Microsoft are pushing hard to lock it down completely.
BumblebeeCody
Member
What about Sonys "Exclusive content"? Watch_Dogs for example.
To be honest after the uproar on Gaf within 24hrs I wouldnt be suprised if it was supposed to be timed if microsoft tie down full exclusivity obviously there is a large demand, both companys are notorious for using tactics that are damaging to the consumer but MS are down at the moment can you really blame them.
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
It was announced at the Xbox conference and nobody at E3 used "Tomb Raider" and "exclusive" in the same sentence. Given that the remaster launched on both consoles mere months earlier it wasn't unreasonable to assume it was a multiplatform title, and pre-orders were being taken for a hypothetical PS4 version. Who knows when the deal was actually made, but suffice to say yesterday's news completely blindsided everybody.
Nope, jumped the gun with that statement before some due diligence. Apologies.
to be explicit: no platforms were announced
also trick for googling: set search dates so its up till like last week.
Night Hunter
Banned
Well, with Sony, if you see a WWS logo somewhere it is exclusive, other than that, timed exclusive or exlusive content. Simple as that (although I am probably forgetting countless examples that contradict this claim).
BibiMaghoo
Member
This seems to just turned out to be a huge misunderstanding but still funny
What . The . Fuck..
I can't even begin to imagine how that is acceptable.
BibiMaghoo
Member
I'm not sure why a developer would actually want their game to be exclusive. It dramatically limits their revenue for that work. No dev wants that. Ever.
Hmm I thought it was more that CD couldn't say anything because they're under NDA. If MS wanted to say, hey yeah, we got it exclusively for the holiday window next year and then it's up to whatever SE wants, they could do it. (Obviously no company is going to say it like that but you get my drift).
I agree. I'm sure I'm coming off as a bit naive with these posts but it just goes back to how hard it is to get answers out of any of these companies. Look at the Agent/Rockstar/Sony example.
I think they want the game to be *made*. And then sign whichever deals with the devil result in the funding required to make that financially viable.
Of course, that can change over time as extra things are negotiated and problems arise. I recall one game I worked on needed an extra four months of development to produce the game we felt it should be, so we needed to go back to our publisher with cap in hand - and in turn they demanded a bit of extra content to justify the extra development (on top of the polish we were putting in at that point). But the game got finished, and it was closer than it would have been to the game we envisioned back at the start.
(That was the original Sniper Elite, and I *think* - if memory serves - we had to put functional enemy tanks in to secure the extra funding for the extra dev time. The publisher liaison we had at the time really had a thing for tanks.)
I'm sure MS would prefer it not be timed, but unless SE are really stupid that would require a lot of cash.
If you're trying to reboot your series and plan on making several sequels, going full console exclusive at this point would basically be locking in every sequel as well since Tomb Raider is pushing for the "cinematic" Uncharted experience. That's a lot of missed sales.
Oh, I agree. But I think the point is that there might be a deal that's currently at some point of negotiation, with SE pulling hard one way and MS pulling in the opposite direction. It might not be looking *that* likely for MS to secure exclusivity, but while the deal's on the table, the possibility is there.
Heck, that does lead to another thought - is it viable to float such a deal *just* to justify confusion over whether a title is exclusive or otherwise?
BibiMaghoo
Member
Sure, it makes sense, but the times we live in means that is far from the only route. If you already have a deal in place with a pub then I can imagine it's super hard to try and squeeze more out of them, but with no deal in place, there are many avenues these days, including self publishing.
There are certainly times a game has to be exclusive to be made at all (bayo2 for example) but I can't see any dev choosing to just make a game for one platform if they could do more.
Similar threads
- Poll
- Locked