Rockstar Develops Agent Exclusively Out of Confidence in PlayStation

06/05/2009 Written by Kishen PatelcloseAuthor: Kishen Patel Name: Kishen Patel
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Announced at the Sony E3 2009 press conference, Take-Two’s Agent is an “ultimate action title” developed exclusively for the PlayStation 3 by Rockstar Games. While exclusive third-party titles are typically seen as a thing of the past, the GTA giant had vivid justification to make the project a PS3 exclusive.

“At this phase in the cycle, when you’re trying to launch a new franchise, exclusivity can really help you launch the franchise. It can give you the kind of platform that you need to start exclusive, start in the right kind of way with the right kind of partner. Exclusivity does work,” said president of Take-Two, Ben Feder”

We certainly cannot argue with this logic. Sure, being multiplatform gives a game access to a larger install base but there’s littler guarantee that it’ll be a success, particularly since it’s a new IP. Even now, there’s still debates over whether franchises like Metal Gear Solid would have done as well as they did if they weren’t PS3 exclusives.

However, there is a positive aspect to only choosing one platform to concentrate on. The development team can literally double their efforts by focusing strictly on one platform, rather than spreading them over two. Being exclusive also ensures support from the platform holder, including advertising support.

Ben Feder of Take-Two expressed why he believes Agent will benefit from being a PS3 exclusive:

“I have a lot of confidence in Sony. I have a lot of confidence in their ability to lead the market, as they always have. Their console is a terrific platform to be developing for, and Agent is a great testament as to our belief in what that platform can do, and what they can do with us as part of a partnership.”

Since Feder believes that this is only the beginning of this generation, it is obvious that Take-Two believes Sony still has time to, and will, end up being the leader of this generation.

[Source]

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They REALLY seem to be hyping this up BIG.

I just hope it comes out in 2010!

Dude, there is thread about this still visible on the Sony page

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=75870

@rainibrd

lol I'm not used to checking each section on the front page. (this is jsut like my 2nd day with VGC 2.0)

Sorry guys, but R* North thread deserves a duplicate or two anyway!

there are also big and promising new ip which fail to deliver even though they concentrate it on a single platform (looking at square enix) *cough* infinite undisco... *cough* the last rem....

@gengka

Infinite Undiscovery and The last remnant were really asinine decisions by Square Enix. They are JRPG games, the biggest user base for JRPG games is in Japan and Xbox is really really low there.

On the 360, in the west RPGs as a whole and JPRGs in particular have not done so well because of the demographic it caters to. There is a reason why original XBOX had tons and tons of FPS and very limited number of games for other genre.

MS wanted to distinguish itself as a console for everyone and not just shooters (FPS or TPS). IT seems they have succeeded in getting games made for their system but traditional Role playing games have not done really well on this console.

I have 10+ friends who have started gaming this gen and own xbox for COD. They make fun of my RPG games :) and wouldn't touch it it a pole. I hope MS paid a lot of money to make them exclusives.

Difference in sales of JRPG games and WRPG games is here:

Infinite undiscovery made 0.47 million world wide
Star Ocean the last hope made 0.39 million
The last Remnant made 0.54 million
Blue Dragon made 0.52 million
Lost Odyssey made 0.8 million
Tales of Vesperia made 0.3 million
Eternal Sonata made 0.22 million


Western RPGs have done better mostly because they are established franchises (or developers) from the PC world (for the most part)

Too human made 0.58 million (critics did not like it even though I think it is a fine game)
Mass Effect made 2.06 million
Fable 2 made 2.75 million
Fallout 3 made 2.35
Oblivion made 2.7 million