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Assassin's Creed Not a PS3 Exclusive?
Gamespot revisits a rumour that was floating around last month, which claims Assassin's Creed won't be a PS3 exclusive. From the article: "Further doubt of PS3 exclusivity was thrown into the mix this week when Web sites began reporting that Ubisoft confirmed at the Interactive Digital Entertainment Festival last week that the game would be coming to the Xbox 360 and PC. Which Web sites? It's not quite clear yet, though the rumor appears to have spawned on European-based Web sites. For those of you who predicted that Ubisoft would deny any other platforms for Assassin's Creed, pat yourself on the back. A rep told GameSpot News: 'Assassin's Creed is coming to the PS3. No other announcements have been made.'" Given the costs of next-gen game development, I don't think we're going to be seeing very many exclusives this time around.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the first MGS for PS1 and thought it was extremely innovative (switching the controller when fighting Pscyho Mantis was simple but BRILLIANT), but MGS2 lacked these clever tricks and had too many long CG cutscenes which kind of turned me off from it (didn't even pick up MGS3). Final Fantasy has always been hit and miss for me (enjoyed VII and X, but hated 8 so refused to play 9 and then DESPISED X-2 so won't be picking up XII), while GT is just another racing game (albeit a VERY nice looking one).
While Assasin's Creed may not be a "great" game, it also probably won't be a terrible game, and at least its new. Besides, it's not like MGS won't (after 2-3 years) end up on the other systems any way (MGS1 and MGS2 did...) GT never will as Sony makes it themselves, FF is just a matter of SquareEnix deciding they want to put their eggs in more than one basket (or choosing to jump ship like they did from Sony to Nintendo back in the day).
Any way, the important thing is that in order for Sony to win over consumer's wallets with a $500-600 system and games ranging from $60-(no more than) $100 they need as much exclusive content as they can get and not just a small handful of "exclusive" games (exclusive is in quotes because 3rd party titles are never guaranteed to remain exclusive unless the contract specifically states that). So if some of the big publisher's (Ubisoft is in the top 5) are reconsidering the exclusivity of titles then that does not bode well for the PS3.
Read my blog posts on usability.
My first system was a playstation because GT was the first game I was good at, and I loved it so. But now GT is just too long, complicated and unfriendly. It's no longer a system seller. It's a hard core simulation and that can't appeal to a broad audience. Unfortunately, and Sony can't dial back the realism now. And it's stuck in a 6 car, Japanese-centric rut.
... and get a sequel.
MGS is something the Japanese get excited about and the rest of the world mostly shrugs. Most of the game's target audience in the U.S. play Tom Clancy games and own an Xbox or PC. It was a big deal, in other words, pre-Splinter Cell.
Final Fantasy...I have a love/hate relationship, but my sense from the hard core fans are that it's played out. It doesn't attract the dungeons and dragons type like it used to, and no real man can get excited about X-2. And WoW basically eats it's lunch in the MMO world (not commenting on the game itself, just membership). So what's left? It seems they can't reach the heights of FF7, and I don't consider that unattainable by any means. And where was Tactics on the ps2? They've gotten too bored with their own formulas, but can't seem to truly break with their past. So we have sequels to FF7, but they aren't RPGs. We have an online game, but it lacks the key characters their fans have come to know and love. They release the snowboard mini-game on the cell phone, but no avalanche of their other mini-games. I think Squaresoft was completely knocked off their game between the merger and the failed movie. It's so sad.
As for the Assassin's creed, I find it unlikely that this will appeal to a broad GTA audience, which seems to be the crowd Ubi is fishing for. It will be relegated to the artsy crowd with Shadow of the Colossus. That isn't a bad thing, because Sony isn't going to sell many systems at their price for a while anyway, so it will still look successful with lowered expectations
X360 has the first RTS, it will get the Tom Clancy games first (always developed for the PC), it will get GTA on the same day, it will have a zillion arcade games soon.
So here's the key thing about exclusives no one says: if your system has a 1,000 games and their system has 500, you have at least 500 exclusives, even if they're all sequels or separate years for sports titles.
Among the actual announced 32 ps3 games are a few exclusives actually. But there's no way Vision Gran Turismo is coming out on time. Each of the last games took an extra year and had features dropped (remember Gran Turismo 2000 changing it's name? Remember the online mode for GT4?). So I'm betting this list is also more hype than reality.