Sony on 3rd party exclusivity

[Twistedpixel]

Masakari said:

Ensemble had shipped games in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009, that's not once every 3 years. The second team also did a lot of R&D, and was in charge of the proposed Halo MMO. Regardless, the factory line mentality is what you seem to like more, I don't support the "1 game per year or per 2 years" mentality, you do a game with maximum quality and without rushing it. The only way you do AAA games yearly or every 2 years is with huge budgets and huge teams, which just increases the cost, which is the whole point, not having insane costs.

Bioware are a huge company NOW, they opened a third location and were put in charge of Mythic after EA bought them. MS has still supported (in a limited way) PC publishing, can you imagine Mass Effect (without the constant rumours), Dragon Age, and The Old Republic, all 360-only or PC360? That would be insanely huge for MS! ME has done great without the PS3, and Dragon Age has sold worse on the PS3, so I don't see what profitability problem there is there. Maybe you are referring to the 42 million KZ2 cost (plus marketing), or the 60 million GT5 is costing (plus marketing)?

As for Epic, yes, that's what has stopped anyone buying them, they make a lot of money out of selling the engine. But it could still work, initially there was no easy PS3 Unreal until Epic ported UT3, and MS could easily make Unreal Engine the "xbox engine", available at competitive pricing to people developing 360 or PC360 titles, which would make a lot of devs really consider if it was wise or not to develop for PS3. Don't underestimate pipeline advantages, i've worked with Unreal on more than 1 occasion, even if MS only bought them now, several companies have an entire pipeline or franchise based on the UE technology.

Anyway, it's not like MS cares, Gears and now Shadow Complex are 360 exclusives anyway. I would just do it diferently.

My statement was based off the after report of one of the ensemble employees giving the reasons why they may have been shut down. It was their words and not my own interpretation of events.

It might have been huge for Microsoft to buy Bioware, however they are looking to shed a lot of their fixed costs so it doesn't look like it would fit within their strategy. Look at Sony, they have had a huge development enterprise as a weight around their neck since the start of the generation. I would suggest a significant proportion of their losses was from the fact that their developers had to fulfill their 'powerful' console image and the low console sales. I don't think Microsoft is keen to put themselves that far over the line and risk losing money like Sony has.

Yes I agree there are positives from aquiring Epic, however the company would lose the incentive to really innovate with their engine once they get a captive audience.