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Darc Requiem on 25 January 2010
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makingmusic476 said:
Darc Requiem said:
Kennyheart said:
Darc Requiem said:
Without ME1 it rather pointless. Mass Effect isn't like Final Fantasy. Each Final Fantasy game is it's own contained story and universe. Not only doesn't ME2 continue the story of ME1, the choices you made in the first game directly effect your quest in ME2.


That's why i think they will release both on one disk if it can.

Microsoft has the publishing rights to the original game. Even though they bought Bioware, EA had to work out a deal with MS to publish Mass Effect 1 on PC. 

It's never as simple as "Microsoft has the publishing rights to the original game."  Case in point, Ninja Gaiden II.

We don't know what deal Microsoft made with BioWare, and how that deal has changed now that BioWare has been purchased.  The only way we could be certain either way is if MS owned the Mass Effect IP, which they don't.

I for one have always been in the "Mass Effect will go multiplat" camp (whether it be 1 & 2 or just 2), but I felt the same about MGS4, and that obviously never happened.  It's made me doubt a few things I thought were a given in regards to third party exclusivity.  Of course, the situations are somewhat different.  In MGS4's case, Kojima always specifically stated the game was and would always be exclusive, often stating reasons for exclusivity that seemed almost... personal.  Something along the lines of, "It's exclusive cuz I want it to be exclusive, even if financially it's not a very wise move."  In the case of Mass Effect, they have never expressly denied a ps3 version, which implies it remains pc/360 strictly for business reasons, reasons that may not be an inhibiting factor some time down the road.

Ninja Gaiden II is a poor example. NG2 is similar to Monster Hunter Tri. Nintendo is handling MH3 outside of Japan but it clearly a Capcom property. The Ninja Gaiden IP has appeared on non MS platforms before and Tomonbu Itagaki was the key reason for Team Ninja titles having a preference for the Xbox platform. Mass Effect 1's publishing situation is quite different. MS funded ME1's development and while IP has always been Bioware's. Microsoft retained the publishing rights. For how long is in question but if there was no sort of deal in place, EA would not have had to make a deal with MS to publish the PC version. I would assume based on prior Bioware developed games that their some sort of contract in place. Lucasarts owns the KOTOR IP. Yet, no games in that series has been released on another console platform.

I'm inclined to agree with MrStickBall's prior assessment of the situation. MS and EA most likely have some sort of exclusivity deal for ME2 on 360 and PC. The PS3 will probably get an Mass Effect Trilogy compilation on a single disc around the time of Mass Effect 3's launch.