kain_kusanagi said:
Catherine and Heavy Rain have a lot in common. They are both risky niche titles and they are designed for mature audiences. But Catherine is multiplatform and Heavy Rain isn't. Catherine sold better on the PS3, but it still made extra cash on the Xbox 360 for the devs. Money is money and profit is all that matters. Sure Sony may be helping to fund the next Quantic Dreams game, but they are still independent and could have decided to go multiplatform like they did with Indigo Profacy and Omikron the Nomad Soul. Catherine is just an example. I'm just always amazed when I see a 3r4d party developer choose not to make money on other platforms. The PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii U are all capable of running the exact same game of very high quality. That's four markets with very little effort or investment with today's multiplatform game engines and tools. By releasing on only the PS3 they are cutting themselves down to 1/4 the available platforms and at least half the potential buyers, if not more. Gears of War, Heavy Rain, Resistance, Splinter Cell Conviction, etc. Wouldn't they have sold even more had they been ported? |
I think game developers shouldn't solely think of profit. Look at Call of duty, a fine example of a franchise turned sour thanks to profit-seeking corporations. Profit is good but shouldn't be the highest priority. I think it would hamper game development if that was something they considered at each step of the development process.
Platform exclusives shouldn't also be thought of as limiting its selling ability. Sure it would sell more as multiplatform, but one main purpose of having exclusives is to foster a community with a distinct identity and this is something all of these companies (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) need to do and they have all managed to achieve this in different ways. I think with this gen, Sony has managed to bring gamers who are interested in these indie type games with a certain uniqueness about them and ever since Uncharted 2, they are always looking for that next GOTY. It should also be noted that Sony has helped bring a wide variety of software this gen while Nintendo and Microsofts' focus have been elsewhere. Microsoft has a more FPS centric community thanks to the success of exclusives such as Halo and Gears of War. I'm sure some Microsoft gamers would be interested in Quantic Dream games, but I would say most don't care about them. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen comments saying Heavy Rain was simply just a giant quick time event and I bet most of them didn't even own a PS3 or played it that often. And with Nintendo, its community this gen is centered a lot on titles that take advantage of new control schemes that Nintendo provides. And they love their in-house Nintendo games. Basically, if a game is made exclusive, one good reason would be it matched the intended audience.
For Catherine and Heavy Rain, even if Catherine did match PS3's audience more since it sold more but still went multiplatform, that doesn't mean Heavy Rain should follow suit. That was Atlus' decision to experiment with a niche title on Xbox. If Quantic Dream doesn't want to, then we can't pin them for it by saying "you make less profit this way." It's ultimately their decision if they feel the Playstation platform best represents their intended audience. And as others have pointed out, Sony also probably funded their development. Also, Catherine is waay more niche than Heavy Rain lol. You're right though. Profit is important, but so is reaching the intended effect you want from people who play your games.
