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FilaBrasileiro on 24 May 2008
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starcraft said:
@Fila.

As I have maintained throughout this thread, all we have is speculation. Its just that my speculation falls into place with the available circumstantial evidence, whereas yours does not.

 Agreed on the 1st point, it's all speculative, I haven't speculated on anything yet, I have just been asking for concrete source and concrete proof, which you have failed to provide.Let's just say, for the sake of argument, I speculate that the deal between EA and Microsoft was to allow Microsoft to still publish ME1 for X360 and get all of the royalties associated with it and in return EA would continue developing and publishing ME for the 360, maybe even making the 360 the preferential platform. If Microsoft did not want to accept the deal, then EA would move their new IP to PC only status or would just have Bioware work on JE2 or KOTOR 2 or something new. All speculation, just like yours.

Actually, until I went searching for this thread, I wasn't aware that Microsoft likely had the publishing rights to ME2 in addition to ME PC. You need to understand something very simple. If Microsoft publishes something, it means they have the right to publish it (unless someone successfully sues them for doing so). There is a direct causal link.

Nothing in your links suggest that Microsoft had publishing rights for the PC. And your second statement is VERY incorrect, there are different publishing deals, if you were right then that would mean SOE owns Mortal Kombat, Midway own Unreal Tournament, Sony owns Final Fantasy, etc...Those deals just means that the publisher has the rights to publish that particular game for that particular platform (sometimes over a specific amount of time, exclusively or not).

What you're getting confused with is when other sort of publishing deals happen where the publisher is the owner of the IP and the developer is simply just developing that game, examples would include Capcom does not own Zelda, Insomniac does not own Ratchet, Bizarre does not own PGR and so on.

Let me ask you, what did SCEA get for "allowing" Eidos to publish FFVII on the PC? What did Microsoft get for "allowing" 2K to publish JE on the PC? Why did SE publish FFT on the PSP and not Sony? Sony would've gotten a lot more money had they published it.

Microsoft published ME for Xbox 360, and was going to publish ME for PC (and apparently ME2 for both). This means, quite simply, that they had the right to do so. Now EA has the rights to publishing ME PC, and they specifically stated that they needed to arrange an agreement with Microsoft to do so.

So it is beyond doubt that Microsoft HAD the rights to publishing ME PC, what is in doubt is what they got from EA in return for giving them up.

 Again, nowhere in your links is it suggested that Microsoft had publishing rights for the PC version of the game, and it's not beyond a doubt considering I still have my doubts.

 
 Answers and opinions in bold.