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Sony Attacks Microsoft's Publishing Policies
winston18 writes "Sony's vice president of publisher relations has gone on record as saying that Microsoft is protecting an inferior technology with their policies regarding content on Xbox Live Arcade and multiplatform titles. The comments stem from Microsoft's admission that they reserve the right to deny titles on Xbox Live if they launch on the PlayStation Network first."
The dynamics of this are also different in that a publisher can choose whether to accept or refuse an offer of exclusivity and the competing vendors are welcome to offer more money to the publisher. In this case Microsoft are simply acting as a bully and attempting to leverage their platform to enforce desirable behaviours in publishers wishing to target that platform.
If you want your game to appear on the XBox at some point then you have to follow Microsofts rules governing your game on OTHER platforms! That is anti-competitive and morally wrong.
I'll explain the title of my post towards the end. Regarding the two digital-distribution marketplaces that Microsoft maintain, however, Microsoft are so schizophrenic with regard to how they operate both XBLA and XBLIG that it's rather stomach-churning.
The fact of the matter is that when the Xbox 360 originally came out, you would see maybe 1 to 2 titles every 1 to 2 weeks released on XBLA. XBLA was touted as the way for smaller, more "indie" development houses to develop games on the X360 platform without having to deal with all of the ins and outs of manufacturing, distribution, and more restrictive technical certification requirements that come with a disc-based game. Microsoft were highly selective over the titles that would be released on XBLA, and for good reason - they needed an online marketplace with many "strong" titles and few "weak" ones.
After so many "indie" development houses complained that they were not being allowed to market such obvious smash hits as "Try Not To Fart" or "Controller Vibrator 2000" - note the intended sarcasm - Microsoft created the XBLIG marketplace, touting that as the new place for smaller, more "indie" development houses to put games onto the X360 platform.
This went well for perhaps 6 to 12 months, with a few particularly good indie games making their way to the top of the XBLIG charts, and all of the undeserving fluff and blatant cash grabs fell to the bottom of the pile, at which point the wheels fell off. Microsoft felt the need to take things in a third direction, now choosing to "upgrade" specific XBLIG dev houses to XBLA contracts.
In doing so, they signed the death warrant for both XBLA and XBLIG. Removing the more polished indie dev houses from the XBLIG marketplace ensured that XBLIG continues to play second fiddle to XBLA, but more importantly, it means that the XBLA marketplace is now flooded with "lesser" games that would otherwise have remained on the XBLIG marketplace (and for good reason). Now, it is much more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff on the XBLA marketplace, and there is no wheat on the XBLIG marketplace.
Despite all of this, Microsoft insist that they are "top dog" regarding their digital marketplaces, to the point of taking blatant advantage over dev houses they perceive as "smaller" when those dev houses come a-knocking to try to get their games released on XBLA. In the case of Minecraft, the sad fact is that the Xbox 360 is the only console (handhelds excluded) on which it will be released, specifically because Microsoft forced Mojang into an exclusive contract. The entire matter is sickening.