Pristine20 said:
Well, at its core, a corporation owes it's allegiance only to it's shareholders and those are the people it's CEO ultimately is accountable to. However, you shouldn't mix this up with individual developers who may not see a dime of moneyhats or other incentives that may sway decisions at the top as they're likely to be different. You should know this if you ever worked for a comany before. |
I've worked for several companies, both public and private. Shareholders want to see companies succeed so that their shares are worth more. Developers want to make as much money as they can because development budgets are just getting bigger and bigger these days. Square Enix knows that it's pretty stupid to release a game only for the 22 million PS3 fans, when there's another 30 million 360 fans, a percentage of which will also buy their games. Shareholders are largely NOT PS3 fanboys and are largely NOT going to be offended or angered by Square Enix releasing a game to MORE potential buyers. PS3 owners are largely NOT going to skip out on buying a game just because it also came out on the 360 and they're all butthurt about it. The whiners you see on the internet about loyalty and "this game should only come out on this platform" are the minority. Most gamers don't care as long as they get to play the games they want to play.
This concept is becoming more and more prevalant which is why third party developers' word means absolutely NOTHING (I'm looking at you, Splinter Cell: Conviction) when they say that a title is exclusive. If the console maker doesn't have a hand in the development as well as rights to the name, it's probably not going to stay exclusive for much more than a year. That's just the way the industry is now.
