| torok said: Yes, they did mishandled it. EA want's their CoD killer that BF never was and TF was exactly that: faster than CoD, made by the CoD guys. It had everything. But they believed that X1 would crush PS4 and Sony wouldn't matter, so they wanted to grab the extra cash from MS. But the market division wasn't as they expected and PS4 got a much bigger market and they weren't there. Now Destiny will come and will start to become the CoD killer, because Activision is smart and know that no franchise lasts forever and if someone has to grab CoD's place, it's better if they do that themselves. So they got a famous developer and create a shooter with a massive marketing budget that simply will sell more than everyone expects on all platforms. All games that opted for exclusivity never recovered from it. Metal Gear and Final Fantasy always sells much better on PS, Mass Effect on XB, it's just how it is. The first game creates a fanbase and people that gets out of this party will forget the game because they were denied to play it. People on PS wanted to play it and probably got mad because they couldn't and finally accepted it and put it on the same bag as Halo and Gears: the games we won't be able to play. People them focused their hype on the next CoD, Destiny, Uncharted any any hyped game that they could actually play. So TF will never recover from it and will always be XB oriented. That wasn't as bad as it sounds in the previous gen when install bases were basically 50/50, but now they will be associated with a smaller base. The game was a good seller, but no matter what EA say, it didn't reach what they wanted. They want the premier shooter franchise that prints money and a gen transition plus the signs of fatigue in CoD made that their perfect timing. They would even manage to get a head start against Destiny but they simply screwed it. |
The problem with this theory is we have evidence that they actually were talking about pulling the plug on the game and the company before they opted to allow another company to step in and financially back the game. If this were their "CoD killer" that "prints money" then they'd have not only made damn sure to provide ample funding for game one, but would have immediately locked up the IP for good. Look at what Activision is doing with Destiny. $500,000,000 committted for the life of the franchise already.
Another thing people don't really understand is the game was only going to be on Xbox One at launch no matter what kind of deals MS/EA reached simply because Respawn only had the manpower for development on one console and Sony was being extremely tight lipped about PS4 information. You can read all about it in The Final Hours of Titanfall. Yes, EA then made a deal to extend that exclusive timeline for a period of 13 months. And then when MS stepped in with financial support for development, in September of 2013 IIRC, they made the exclusive lifetime for the first title. Has nothing to do with "thinking Xbone would crush PS4". What 99% of people posting in these threads fail to grasp is the exclusive deals were done for obvious reasons and saved the game from getting canceled.
So the alternative to exclusive deals you think ruined the franchises potential, is pulling the plug, which really kills any potential. I mean I think Titanfall 2 will sell more on PS4 than no Titanfall ever releasing will ever sell on PS4.
