Edge: Is the parity clause dead now?

Spencer: I think so. There's this idea that's been named 'parity clause', but there is no clause. We've come out and been very transparent in the last four or five months about exactly what we want. 

If there's a developer who's building a game and they just can't get the game done for both platforms - cool. We'll take a staggered release. We've done it before, and we work with them on that. If another platform does a deal with you as a developer to build an exclusive version of your game for them, and you can't ship on my platform for a year, when the game comes out in a year let's just work together to make it special in some way. People complained about that, but you did a deal with somebody else and you got paid for it and I'm happy - we do those same deals, so I'm not knocking you. It's going to be better for you, actually, because people don't want last year's game, they want something special and new.

Original Source: Edge magazine #282
Source: Neogaf

Sounds like it still stands to me. How a company can tell a developer how and when they should release their own game is silly. The only thing MS should be concerned about is if it passes QC.

I've said it before, it's a case of the big guy using their muscle to bully the little guy.

In all fairness, the "special in some way" thing is a tactic Sony used against them before and quite effectively. When Microsoft was buying up one year exclusives at the beginning of last generation, Sony told developers that they could only release on Playstation if the game was markedly improved over the initial release. Sony fans had to wait a year--and at that time, we didn't know about the limited terms--but the result was a superior game. I can't criticize Microsoft for using the same strategy.

Source?

I know of some games releasing later on PlayStation with added content but thought it was more of the publishers decision. But I also know games that released later on PlayStation with nothing added (Braid, Limbo a few that I've played)

I don't have one, as this was something from the PS3/360 era, but it's been well-known for years.  It's fine if you don't believe it.

It was to combat timed exclusive retail releases, I don't know if they ever applied it to small digital titles--though I do know Microsoft has been doing this with digital titles since the 360.

About fucking time. with how much devs chose PS4 over xb1 it was just a matter of time before ms were forced to do this

Yep, exactly.  When devs were struggling to wrap their heads around the PS3's architecture and games were coming out later, Sony had the exact same demand of devs.  I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, actually.  

Like I've said on here before, it's the exact same thing Sony had with devs last gen and no one seemed to care. It's not even enforced much it seems. And as time goes on and more and more of the indie timed exclusive deals on PS4 end and devs look to an Xbone release, you'll see it enforced less and less.

At least the FUD about the parity clause is dead LOL. Remember when MS was supposedly using the parity clause to neuter PS4 versions of multiplats according to some here?

Read again

This guy must be one of the best players of :

Spin Spencer