LOL Sony has always had an installed base in Japan that was just waiting until they lowered the price and got more JRPG's.

I laugh when some of you try to put Sony in a bad light because of their demand of extra content... OF COURSE they should get extra content for a game that is released 1 year after it has been released on their competitor's console. Otherwise Sony would be stupid, as they would not have any advantages over the price reduced 360 ToV version. Sony is no bad guy here, and both MS and Nintendo would do the exact same thing. In my opinion it is more morally wrong for a company like MS, with an endless sack of gold that no competitors could rival, to throw their money to devs left and right. I do not understand how some of you see Sony's actions as blackmailing and morally wrong when you obviously support all the moneyhats. They are both business practices, and I support Sony's practice a lot more than MS' in this case. I am not saying moneyhats are negative in all cases, and I guess it is a fairly good practice to help devs create their games more easily, but when this is the standard procedure you use trying to get games for your platform...

Also, I see some of you mention this is helping a lot of devs, etc, and YES it DOES, but MS is only moneyhatting huge franchises and devs anyways, not smaller devs that might need the money more than Namco Bandai and their "successful" Tales-series, or Enix's SO-series, or T2's Bioshock, or Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden... In my opinion, this shows that the moneyhatting is purely for MS' benefit and their's only. They want the huge franchises on their platform and away from Sony's. The main reason behind the moneyhatting is NOT to help devs in any way, but try to lure customers (mainly in Japan with the JRPGs) to buy the 360. Just like any other business practice out there.

As far as I know, Sony secures 3rd party exclusives because they have an interesting platform to develop on. Of course they might pay of devs as well, and I actually believe they do, but we have no information of such a thing to have taken place. Therefore I have to go under the assumption that Sony secure their 3rd party exclusives with the use of other methods than moneyhatting.

I applaud Sony this gen for showing the courage and skills to develop their own titles and not resort to paying devs off to keep their games exclusive (timed or fully) to their platform. This shows a internal strength and it's the reason why I always have and always will love and respect Nintendo as a company, even though they have been really stupid this gen.

Like, how is any of this any different than Sony (with IBM) funding the production and R&D of the 360's processor? Microsoft gets what they deserve... Hopefully sooner than expected Mr. Karma will come and kick them in the teeth.

This timed exclusivity crap sucks. I don't like how the PS3 version will have more features than the game I payed for, but I sure as hell wouldn't like waiting an entire year to play a game that's been out.

Why is Namco acting like they were forced into making the decision they did? The fact is, they chose to take the money, and they knew what the final outcome would have to be. The traces of the PS3 additions found in the 360 version aren't helping their case.

I'm done supporting any suspicious third party exclusive games. I'll just rent / borrow if it's a must-play game. Really, this shit needs to stop.

... By the way, the fanboyism shown in this thread is kind of painful to read through. Bleh.

If this is true then good. Not so much the Developers taking payoffs from microsoft part but Sony's Policy for a richer game. Especially if a franchise use to be Sony Playstation exclusive. Why should sony hand any developer money for a game that's not exclusive to them? Sony has it's own exclusives and troubles.

The game is still just a port so it's not even made specifically for the ps3?! I don't think anyone's making them bring their games to ps3 and I don't see how this is blackmail. I'm surprised sony hasn't taken it a step further and make dev's who take money to delay a game on ps3 for timed exclusivity for another platform to publicly state so before that game is released on that other platform. It seems to me like anything named Timed Exclusive for PS3 is revealed to be so way before the game is even released. As a Playstation Fan i'd applaud sony for this.

If anyone gets mad who bought a game a whole YEAR earlier on another platform then I say, tough.

Logic. No shame to buy exclusives. Sony did it, but they buy flops lika Haze and Unreal Tournament III.

Didnt change anything. JRPGS maybe dont sell well, like often becuase its few JRPGS that sell well. In Western JRPG have sold good consider that its for Xbox 360.

There is so much illogical hate towards Sony going into this thread that it's simply baffling.

People are actually blaming Sony for demanding extra contents on a year late port?

Namco went exclusive because MS bribed them with cash yet Sony is to blame for demanding extra content after Namco has made off with the cash and now wants another platform's userbase to have sloppy second?

What absurdity.

Namco made a business decision that they believe will make them the most profit. Cash from MS for the time exclusive and then extra profit once it gets ported to the PS3 which obviously has a larger fanbase for this game. It even seems to have paid off which is what really annoyed me.

Neither MS nor Sony are the villain in this case, the only one that I'm slightly miffed at is Namco who once again show their greed by wanting the best of both world and got it.

This really makes Sony appear in a bad light. Especially that support comment.

A developer from Artoon shoots off his mouth over ToV. What next?

Not that bad if you put it into (time) perspective. When did the development start, in 2006? I think it's common knowledge that Sony's SDK /development tools and services were not up to the same quality as Microsoft's and they really had to catch up.

In this sense you could also say that Namco's devs used the timed exclusivity deal to buy some time and wait for the tools and support to mature a bit.

Couple of points, and remember I'm still taking these comments with a pinch of sale in terms of whether this is an isolated case of something more widespread and probably related to titles like SO:4, etc.  But again, assuming for the moment the comments refer to a more widespread practice:

1) I don't think Sony was particularly ignoring the Japanese audience, it simply wasn't willing to get into a bidding war.  MS apparently tried hard (using cash and additional support incentives) to deny Sony access to certain titles.  Sony couldn't make a title like ToV available to PS3 owners if MS tied it up with a 12 month exclusivity, could they?

2) MS approach I believe stands a chance of backfiring in Japan.  Essentially, the approach outlined here translates to me as MS effectively hiring companies who were willing to become like temporary 2nd party developers - i.e. focus on us and give only us a game for 12 months.  The reason I could see this backfiring in Japan is that it was unlikely 360 would gain enough traction from this to then withstand the backlash as titles started to appear one after the other on PS3 with extra content.  I suspect in Japan many gamers are coming to the conclusion it's better to wait for the PS3 version.

So I don't see MS as 'holding fast'.  I don't think they should have been induldging in signing up timed exclusives at all.  ToV should either have been fully exclusive to 360 or should have launched on both consoles at the same time.

Sony, I don't see in any way as the 'guilty' party here.  They are faced with a competitor using cash incentives and simply demand that if a title comes late to PS3 is has to have some new content.  I believe MS themselves have a similar policy.

In the end MS tried hard, I'd argue too hard using too aggresive a Western approach, to break into Japan.  In the end they probably made some short term gains in console sales and somewhat inconveniencing Sony, but I get the feeling that in the longer term this approach is going to have made more of a bad impression in Japan vs a good one.

I know hindsight is cheap, but rather than timed exclusives if I was MS I would only have chased full exclusives and looked to fund new IP specific for my console in the region.  I know MS did fund new IP as well as secure timed exclusives, and I actually salute that, I think that's a true 'putting your money where your mouth is' approach.

But trying to buy off developers to delay release on another console to force consumers towards their console - it's fair in business, but it's not an approach I condone or look fondly upon.

On another note - I saw SO:4 is now supposed to be launching on PS3, I wonder whether that will have new content or whether SE will get a pass from Sony so long as FFXIII remains exclusive in Japan?  Now that's some potential Sony orientated machinations you might want to ponder if you do want to look for Sony as 'the bad guy' - which is what you seem to want to do.