AngryLittleAlchemist said:
At the same time, didn't Sony have a lot of restrictions for devs already by the time the PS2 came around? I specifically remember hearing about how Sony tried to enforce restrictions so that third parties wouldn't put their games onto other consoles, and one of the restrictions actually ended up biting them in the ass because it made Rockstar put more effort into their GTA port for Xbox, which made them the superior versions. Really, I think the biggest reason is sales. By the time Playstation started fucking up in a lot of the same ways as Nintendo (with both of them having their 3rd home consoles being disasters), Playstation was too big of a brand worldwide to lose third parties entirely. It had Europe on lockdown, was very competitive in Japan and America, and it essentially owned the world. If it was just about how many problems one company had, PS3 wouldn't have ended the generation having caught up with Xbox 360. |
I haven't heard anything like this before. Do you have a source? I always figured the Xbox 360 had the better versions of GTA ran better because the Xbox 360 was easier to develop for. Many third party games ran better on xbox, like Bethesda games, for example.
As for Playstation being too big of a brand, I'd have a hard time arguing it's a bigger brand than Nintendo, and Nintendo had no problem pissing third party support down the drain. I think PS3 caught up with 360 because Sony put in a genuine effort to make their console more appealing, and showed some humility along the way. Actually listening to the people that want to buy your product, and putting a meaningful effort into addressing their concerns can go a long way to make people want to buy your hardware.