I am not an XBOX fan neither a PS fan.. i m just a gamer... and FFXII is not my type either... but the buzz of joys and the cries with tears made me wander wot is it all about...

So here i m trying to do a little analysis as an impartial 'analyst'... (i do realise that i m not an analyst).

How i see it from Sony's perspective:

If i be the chairman of the Sony i think i would not be much purturbed by this news... i would be more concerned by the lowly sales of non-BC PS3... honestly... There are two reasons... first the price to keep the FFXIII would have been staggering... and as a chairman should i have gone for it.? if i be the chairman i would have said NO way... firstly i just did a little search and i saw that FFX and FFX-2 had 30 - 50% sales in Japan.. and FFXIII is going to be exclusive in Japan.. and secondly its going to release much much earlier in Japan... and again Sony is gettig beaten worst in Japan... and the sales have been simply too depressing... So losing the exclusivity

Secondly for the real fans of FF series FFXIII versus is still exclusive.. so the real fans of the series are still going to choose Sony because they will definitely want FFXIII versus too... so the Sony will be only losing from those ppl who will want to know abt wot is all the fuss abt FFXIII... and they will be like me.. but when it will be launched in around late 2009 then i m sure PS3 price would be pretty near to XBOX price so the deciding factor for console to purchase would not be the price but other factors and if by any chance sony has developed a good library by that time then i m sure more will be choosing PS3 over XBOX atleast in europe... so only place where sony will be loosing some consoles will be NA

lastly PS3 is the lead platform for FFXIII so i m sure if SE is planning for January launch than they will be well ahead in their optimization of FFXIII on PS3.. so the game is going to be setting the standards on PS3... So overall i think the cost of keeping the exclusivity was simply too high....

and moreover if i have read it correctly Sony has 9 - 10% shares in SE.. so they will be getting some benefit too indirectly from this deal..

from SE perspective:

They will be getting lots of money from this deal.. in Japan XBOX doesn't matter so releasing it there was of no use... and in NA and europe they are going to get some reasonable sales on XBOX too and some new gamers to this franchise. so its a win win win win situation for them...

from XBOX perspective:

honestly i don;t know why they have done it even spending 50 million on getting this exclusivity is not worth it if i analyze it impartially.. (i guess it will be north of 100 million)... no doubt its a very very big franchise in the gaming industry... but let see realistically... it will be released around 2009 - 2010 frame.. and if by any chance it is released later than 2009 christmas than i will say MS has been simple screwed... cuz in 2010 XBOX will be celebrating its 5th birthday and MS will be talking abt new their next console or may be they will be about to release it... and it will be simply too late for people to buy XBOX for this game only... definitely it will sell to many new gamers to this franchise on XBOX but i don't think it will be enough to justify the price...

Secondly its going to be exclusive in Japan where MS needed this most...

and most importantly when MS is going to learn the lesson that third party exclusives are not real exclusives.. they have to develop their own gaming studio and if i had been the chairman of the MS XBOX division i would have said ok go and buy developers from this price.. or buy couple of new IPs from this price... just like they bought Halo.. and it gave them 3 fantastic game in the series...

Sony is expanding and bringing new IPs.. although these new IPs have not been MUCH successful: like Warhawk or Heavenly Sword or Lair or uncharted.. but 1 or 2 of them can be developed into a series...

I for once believed that Sony management has done a better decission than MS ... they have made a decission which is going to be more beneficial to them in the long run.. and if they bring couple of new IPs or buy some studio from the money they saved from not keeping the FFXIII exclusive around the globe then this decission is definitely going to return them a lot more...

lastly i think FFXIII has been delayed a little too much... it should be released atmost around 2 yrs after the console launch..

Anyway these are my impartial views... and u all r free to disagree..

i think this deal for MS is just like Sony says that halo 3 will be on PS3 but only in Europe and not in America... ok it will be a little boast but it will not be worth it at all.. America is Halo's land and not europe... (i think i have exaggerated it a bit but believe me i have not exaggerated it much).

Great write and I kinda agree with you.. If FFxiii isn't released before holiday 2010 MS had a bad deal.. now let's wait until the game is released...

i dont see how you can be impartial when you refer to it as "stealing"

Actually, your "X-box perspective" seems to be a second Sony perspective, there are few ways to disarm what is, after all, the most staggering blow MS has dealt to Sony since they dived into the console industry last gen.

your title alone is an oxymoron!

Sorry i m not a native english speaker.. so i didn't find appropriate word for MS buying FFXIII.. i wanted to keep some sensation in it too... just buying wouldn't have that strength in it... but still it will be good if u comment on wots written than the title..

I think I would have expected MGS4 and Tekken 6 to go multiplatform before expecting to see FFXIII land on 360. It just goes to show you how far Microsoft has come in one generation.

Still, the news is too late to really do the damage. If this would have happened last year, it would have been near-fatal to Sony in America. But with an expected release date at the tail end of this console cycle...its just not gonna have the impact it could have had.

It will help Microsoft in the long term though. Sony's new first-party IP have done well, but none have hit a "killer app" level of popularity/excitement the way MGS4 and FFXIII did, and the 3rd party games are still the ones to wish and wait for. If this doesn't change, Sony will slowly lose its ground on the game front.

You forget the bad impact this has on Sony:

Xbox 360 owners do not need to buy a PS3 for XIII anymore. We've already seen 3-5 X360 owners on these forums already state that XIII would of been the deciding factor in getting a PS3, and now that's not the case.

So because of this, it hurts Sony pretty bad: 10,000 consoles, 50,000 consoles, maybe more, won't be sold because of this announcement. Those consoles can't give Sony any sort of positive revenue, and gives Microsoft positive revenue since the X360 owners that stay X360-exclusive buy their software for the 360, not PS3.

And again, this cost Microsoft $0.00 USD. This wasn't a moneyhat by MS. This was S-E desiring more cash, pure and simple.

You are quite optimist, but perhaps what you wrote is one of the possible right ways Sony can play its cards (in the sense that what's done it's done, but image is of the essence too, so Sony, other than spending money in things different from exclusives, can also spin words about the facts to cure at least image damages) to parry MS' blow.

I definitely agree that Sony is going too much for the profit making.. may be with 2 yrs of losses they r now desperate.. i believe it would have been much better if Sony had lowered the 80GB with BC for $450 and 40GB without BC for $350. or the best could have been to totally abandon without BC model and only keeping BC models.. i don't know why can't they see that market is not accepting without BC model.. it is just like they r trying to force Vista on ppl.. but in console ppl have choice.. and they won't like to sacrifice... come on Sony... see it and realise it..