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Sony Europe's Exclusive Game Deals Raise Ire
An anonymous reader writes "Eurogamer has an editorial up about Sony Europe's recent practice of paying for PS2-exclusive titles from Namco, Ubisoft, Rockstar and others for European release. The author doesn't seem to mind short-term platform exclusives too much, as long as there's a PC version around at the same time, but complains loudly about Kill.Switch and I-Ninja, which were both released on other formats in the USA but are permanently exclusive to the PS2 in Europe." What do you think of hardware manufacturers locking in games to certain platforms, whether a territorial decision or a universal one?
"What do you think of hardware manufacturers locking in games to certain platforms, whether a territorial decision or a universal one?"
I think that too much time is spent here worrying about Microsoft and not enough worrying about Sony. Sony's starting to get into the de-facto monopoly position that Windows was at many moons ago, and as a result, you're going to see stuff like this happening. (Square anybody?)
I've pointed this out before, but it fell on deaf ears since people generally like Sony's products.
"Derp de derp."
What do you think of hardware manufacturers locking in games to certain platforms, whether a territorial decision or a universal one?
This is where the companies actually make money - through software and licensing fees for the platform. They always lose money on hardware and securing exclusive titles is one of the only ways to make money. Exclusive content is one method that they can try to guarantee licensing revenue for a that platform (since the amount is actually tied into the number of games they sell).
Now, some people might not like this, but I will try to draw an analogy here. Does your copy of iMovie run on Windows XP? iMovie works the same for Apple the way that exclusive content works for game console manufacturers. However, in Apple's case, it's the reverse: they make money on the hardware and not so much the OS.
Lots of people seem to be weighing in only on one side of this debate, and that's console-specific exclusivity. I think a large amount of attention (and legal focus, possibly) should be paid to the territorial lockouts, however. Why is it that people find it perfectly reasonable to complain about the MPAA and DVD-CCA implementing DVD region coding, but not nearly as many people get up in arms about game region coding?
I remember when Advance Wars 2 was scheduled to come out in Great Britain, and it kept getting delayed for no apparent reason. Some of the UK shops started importing US product, and Nintendo tried to come down on them for it. But the fact of the matter is that there was plenty of demand for the game, and Nintendo was sitting on it for no good reason.
For those of you that don't know, Nintendo uses no region coding or lockouts in portable software (yet), so a US GBA can play Japanese and EU games. For some time, US gamers had to import Shining Soul, a Diablo-ish RPG based on Sega's Shining Force series, because Sega only released it in Japan and the EU, and wouldn't release it here.
Furthermore, Nintendo markets and publishes games to the different EU territories specifically, so having an EU-specific (IE - multilanguage) game isn't a problem either, especially on handhelds where NTSC/PAL/SECAM isn't an issue.
So, localization issues aside, why are the game manufacturers given leeway when we take the MPAA to task for the same tactics? Why is it that I must void my console warranty if I choose to import legally produced and purchased game software from other territories? My modded PSX is almost dead from drive failure, and I have quite a few DDR games that I won't be able to play anymore unless I chip my PSone. And that just sucks.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Actually, I think he was pointing out that at one point in time(the 8 bit generation), Nintendo held a lot more power of the console market than Sony does now. There were some pretty stringent legal agreements in place to prevent third parties from developing for the competition(aka the Sega Master System, a system which in its day had a lot less market share and mind share than either the Gamecube or Xbox do now).
Nintendo once had a barrier of entry as large or larger than Sony has raised, but in the end they lost their number one position(though they have kept it in the handheld arena). Thus, discussing Sony's current stranglehold on the number one position, and using Nintendo as the 'underdog trying to break in' is ironic, given that Nintendo's current position is an example of the fact that Sony's current position isn't guaranteed in the long term.