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Forums - Sales Discussion - Sony and MS's approach to exclusive contents: which is better?

Branko2166 on 02 November 2008

I prefer Sony's approach because while it may be more costly in the short term. In the long run they will be guaranteed a steady stream of exclusives and any other 3rd party exclusives they may pick up on the way is just icing on the cake so to speak.

MS strategy is fine as well but only if their console is doing very well. They were fortunate to have a 1 year head start with the 360 which allows them to use their current approach. If however they end up releasing their next console within a similar time frame as their competitors then I believe closing down and letting go of some of their best studios will come back to haunt them.



 

 

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starcraft on 02 November 2008
Impulsivity said:

@ Starcraft you might be right about Too Human not losing much, esp for the publisher. I still see it being the bullet that does Silicon Knights in. It might not have lost that much, but it almost certainly didn't make anything given its generally good (read, expensive) graphics, REALLY long development time and exclusivity.

I strangely really liked it after a rental for the first chapter. Then somehow they sucked all the fun out in the 2nd. Suddenly they add groups of 15 enemies that are more or less immune to gun fire in a game with gun specific classes, they add poisons that last FOREVER so you can clear a room out and have half health left then slowly bleed to death. It was a decent game with horrific execution on things like status effect duration and enemy design, kind of sad since I like Diablo games and norse mythology. Maybe they'll fix it and make it into a decent PC game. I kept wishing it WAS a PC game the whole time I tried it out.

Oh I have no doubt Silicon Knights lost a truckload over the ten years.  But Microsoft was only involved for 3-4 and the game sold 400k so far.

Also, they are signed on to publish the trilogy, which Silicon are meant to be well and truly on the road to producing, likely at a much reduced price due to the existence of assets from Too Human 1.

I agree that the game wasn't as bad as reviews made out.  Still, it was severely lacking in some areas.

 



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

mibuokami on 02 November 2008
starcraft said:

1. Lionhead has been hard at work on another game for at least a year.

2. Rare made Viva Pinata and Viva Pinata 2, both of which are easily N64 quality. Kameo is also awesome (though admittedely not AS awesome). Judging by demo impressions, the next Banjo appears to be N64 quality.

3. Rumour has it Turn 10 are making Project Gotham Racing 5 AND Forza Motorsport 3.

4. Microsoft is in the process of opening a new studio (starts with an "s"). Apparently it's absorbing a lot of the people that were left when they decided to close Ensemble.

 

 

Whats the point of closing Ensemble only to open another studio with the majority of its staff intact? Does the cost of running said studio suddenly become cheaper? Is the cheaper expense worth the lost of the name Ensemble which has a fantastic reputation and a great pedigree for success? I cannot understand the logic of this, the only other reason I can think of is a restructuring attempt by MS to remove the excessive cost of studio exec pay package?




Cueil on 02 November 2008

They opened the Halo development studio didn't they? They have that guy who worked at Konami in it. Lionhead always has a few games in development as well as a few ideas in research... I wouldn't mind another Black and White game... maybe a port of the original onto Live.



 
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starcraft on 02 November 2008
mibuokami said:
starcraft said:
Impulsivity said:
k looked it up. Seems MS has 6 studios, 4 of which make games for the Xbox.

1.Lionhead makes Fable plus some PC games (The Movies, Black and White). They are almost certainly spent for at least 2-3 years after Fable 2 as they work on something new.

2.Rare....Who knows what the Hell Rare is doing, they haven't released an N64 quality game yet on the 360. Their last good game was Conker on the N64 in what....2002? Maybe the new Banjo will be better then it looks, who knows.

Wingnut Interactive which only works in collaboration with bungee (seemingly on something halo related, maybe that Recon game. Sam Fisher/Snake in space!)

3.Turn 10 with their Forza games.

Other then that there are just a few live development studios that are loosely affiliated and ACES which makes the flight simulator PC/Iphone games.

4.On the other hand they've killed 6 studios in the last 18 months or so, more then they left open. At the same time they have not opened any new ones at all.

1. Lionhead has been hard at work on another game for at least a year.

2. Rare made Viva Pinata and Viva Pinata 2, both of which are easily N64 quality. Kameo is also awesome (though admittedely not AS awesome). Judging by demo impressions, the next Banjo appears to be N64 quality.

3. Rumour has it Turn 10 are making Project Gotham Racing 5 AND Forza Motorsport 3.

4. Microsoft is in the process of opening a new studio (starts with an "s"). Apparently it's absorbing a lot of the people that were left when they decided to close Ensemble.

Whats the point of closing Ensemble only to open another studio with the majority of its staff intact? Does the cost of running said studio suddenly become cheaper? Is the cheaper expense worth the lost of the name Ensemble which as a fantastic reputation and great pedigree for success? I cannot understand the logic of this, the only other reason I can think of is a restructuring attempt by MS to remove the excessive cost of studio exec pay package?

I think the logic is that the new studio will be Xbox focused, whereas Ensemble was always PC-based except for Halo Wars.

 



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

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Cueil on 02 November 2008

yay for exec pay package removal...



 
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mibuokami on 02 November 2008
starcraft said:

I think the logic is that the new studio will be Xbox focused, whereas Ensemble was always PC-based except for Halo Wars.

Why would refocusing development to the Xbox lead to a closure of a reputable studio with such a great pedigree? Bungie made the jump from PC to Xbox without getting the entire studio's image destroyed. Considering MS actually OWNS Ensemble this makes even less sense.

Restructuring of this scale cost a lot of money, it simply makes no sense to close the studio down only to open another studio with the same employee unless MS deem that the resource allocated to it can be better spent or better managed. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that that some MS analyst predicted an increase in cost effeciency by this restructuring enough to offset the cost of the studio's closure.




Cueil on 02 November 2008
mibuokami said:
starcraft said:

I think the logic is that the new studio will be Xbox focused, whereas Ensemble was always PC-based except for Halo Wars.

Why would refocusing development to the Xbox lead to a closure of a reputable studio with such a great pedigree? Bungie made the jump from PC to Xbox without getting the entire studio's image destroyed. Considering MS actually OWNS Ensemble this makes even less sense.

Restructuring of this scale cost a lot of money, it simply makes no sense to close the studio down only to open another studio with the same employee unless MS deem that the resource allocated to it can be better spent or better managed. The only plausible explanation I can think of is that that some MS analyst predicted an increase in cost effeciency by this restructuring enough to offset the cost of the studio's closure.

Perhaps they were consolidating into a new development process... there has to be more reasons than we know for the closer... I wish we could get the whole story.

 



 
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hunter_alien on 02 November 2008

In the middle... IMO Sony should actually pay for some 3rd party exclusives, while IMO the lack of 1st party killers will ultimetly help Sony get past MSs sales... but thats just my opinion :P

1st party and 3rd party is = in importance when it comes to the HD consoles, and at this point in 3rd party support MS wins, while in 1st party support Sony. Neither can afford a mostly 3st party base like Sony did with the PS2 or a 1st party only stand like Nintendo is doing now ;)



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frybread on 02 November 2008

Games standpoint? In-house. Look at Nintendo, hardware and software are designed together. Sony is the same, all 1st party games take advantage of cell.

Business standopint? Paid exclusive. Most of the advantages, none of the risk.



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