So it has to be asked, should Bulletstorm have been a 360 exclusive?

[Reasonable]

BenVTrigger said:

I really do think people are looking at this situation the wrong way to be honest.  Lots of users in here are overlooking the fact of how much more buzz this game would have generated being a console exclusive on the 360.  It would have Epics name written on it who 360 fans already support and love with Shadow Complex and Gears of War.  It's a FPS which does massive numbers on the console.  And it would have generated FAR more hype due to the competition it would have had being a direct exclusive competitor with Killzone.

Exclusives really get the fanbase excited and Epic is obviously one of 360 fans favorite developers.  In this case there isn't a question in my mind being an exclusive the game would have at the very least done a quite larger first week.  And rarely do I say that but in this case I'm sure of it.  In fact I think it would have quite easily done 500k on the 360 first week at least.  There is no large scale 360 exclusive in the 1st half of the year and that would have given it even more momentum. 

The only thing that would have made it worth being exclusive to 360 would have been Gears level of support from MS.  But... I don't think that would have happened for this game.  Too new, too quirky no big online hook I can see.  TBH if Bulletstorm had been exclusive to 360 I think it would have launched more in line with Alan Wake in terms of hype/interest, which is roughly where it was anyway.

It's a mistake to think marketing guarantees anything.  I can help a lot.  But the product has to live up to it.  Gears got a huge push from MS that really, really helped but the fact the game was AAA excellent made the different.  Bulletstorm, despite the Epic link, is a good but not AAA game and as such wouldn't see the same benefits.

The best chance for the title was to be multi- which is why it was released and developed that way.  EA/Epic then made a really poor choice of launch date on PS3 and paid - so far - a heavy price.  Comparing the PS3/360 ratio to other 85% rated solid FPS it's clear they've managed to flush away a lot of sales on PS3 by deciding to compete with a platform exclusive for sales.

We can discuss the pros/cons of being exlcusive for the title, but the real issue in reality - given the title wasn't and won't be - is why in hell they essentially sent the game to die on PS3?  Not that I think there was any conspiracy about it - just poor decisions that surprise me.