SNK Talks Sony Approval, Xbox Exclusives

Thanks to Insert Credit for its interview with SNK USA's Ben Herman, conducted at E3 last week, in which he "addressed the rumor that Sony had forced the company into making [multiple games in one compilation] pack-ins for their 2D [PlayStation 2] titles." Herman noted that, apparently, "pack-ins were indeed his plan all along... but acknowledged that Sony was definitely more receptive to the pack-in idea than the single package. SvC Chaos and Metal Slug 3 stand alone discs were not approved, for instance." Thus, "The Xbox exclusives in the US market (the aforementioned SvC Chaos and Metal Slug 3) only came about because of Sony's rejection", and Xbox exclusivity won't be repeated in the near future. There's also a longer interview with Ben Herman posted at the MMCafe forums in which he confirms that "Samurai Shodown V and Samurai Shodown V: Special... [are] approved for the PS2."

Comments

Suicide For The Niche Market

[shadowcabbit]

Wait, so Sony did reject two niche games because they weren't sufficient to put on one disc? I certainly do not get this. Why reject SvC Chaos and risk halfway-pissing off Capcom, and approve Guilty Gear X two years ago? (For those of you not in the know, GGX was a fighting game put out by Sammy that had a great engine but was very stripped down compared to the arcade version. Guilty Gear XX, released last year, restored the rest of the game's functionality and added new characters.)

The next generation of consoles that compete is going to have a clear-cut winner if they attract new players and niche players as well as mainstream gamers. Denying publishers the right to put out a game on the system because it's "not innovative enough", despite the drove of fans who want it, is not a smart move at all. Note that this isn't the same as developing endless copycat clones and sequels; sure, the games themselves are sequels, but with the popularity they had been enjoying in the US (and the fact that they were already developed) it was insane for Sony to deny SNK the privilege. Sony has sent a fair amount of money to Microsoft with that decision.