This generation of consoles has been quite the wild ride so far, with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 neck-and-neck now in terms of overall sales. The deciding factor in someone’s purchase used to be third-party exclusives, something which Sony believes is bad for the games industry.
As spotted on ScrawlFX, Senior Brand Manager for MLB 11: The Show Scott McCarthy took some time to discuss his feelings regarding third-party exclusives. When asked about the recent trend of fewer and fewer of these games being locked down to a single platform, Scott explained Sony’s strategy:
We work very closely with our 3rd parties publishers, not necessarily to lock down games exclusively, but to lock up exclusive parts of games.
An example Mr. McCarthy gave was the mega-hit Batman: Arkam Asylum, where Sony locked in Joker as a playable character exclusive to the PlayStation 3. Defending his stance on using exclusive portions of the game rather than the entire game itself, he stated that “When you make a title exclusive, you limit its promotional power; we don’t want to do that. We want games to be as big as possible — it’s great for the industry.” It should be noted that he is talking about third-party titles, and not first-party. So do you feel Mr. McCarthy is correct? Is exclusive content, rather than exclusive titles, the best way for the industry to go when it comes to third-party games? Let us know in the comments below, and stay tuned to PlayStation LifeStyle for all your gaming industry news.
