E3 is on at the moment. Microsoft have already had their press conference and it was pretty jam packed with content.
If I were a PS3 fanboy, the most depressing news to come from it is that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer a PS3 exclusive! What in the world were Sony thinking (smoking?) when they decided to not do everything they possibly could to retain exclusivity.
There is some clarifying to do however. FFXIII will still be exclusive to PS3 in Japan, but it will appear on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 in English speaking territories. The obvious reason for doing this, is that Xbox 360 has a greater audience in North America and it makes sense for Square… but not for Sony. This is one occasion when Sony should have done a Microsoft and pulled out the wallet to “make things right”. If Sony want to get the PS3 ahead of the Xbox 360 worldwide, they need to tie-up exclusives, especially with the price not looking to be lowered anytime soon.
Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still a PS3 exclusive, but never-the-less I fear it may be time to bring back my custom “Sony is run by idiots” logo.
There is more bad news (good news for Xbox 360) owners. There will be exclusive Resident Evil 5 DLC (downloadable content) for Xbox 360 and Games for Windows. Fallout 3 will also be receiving “substantial” DLC on the Xbox 360 and Windows platforms, though this doesn’t really bother me because Fallout 3 is BANNED in Australia.
Microsoft also revealed there will be a significant overhaul of the Xbox 360 dashboard, with a lot of new features. The only good news for PS3 owners to come from this press conference is that Viva Pinata 2 is an Xbox 360 exclusive.
Back to non-fanboy mode. I think it’s fair that all gamers, no matter their platform of choice get to experience great games. If I didn’t think this, I would be the biggest hypocrite known to man as I’ve long been pushing for games to be available on Linux. But I categorically do not like it one bit, that Microsoft is presumably paying huge amounts of money to secure exclusive rights to DLC.
Sony’s press conference is tomorrow and I have a sneaking suspicion they are shaking in their boots. Boy has Sony dropped the ball.
I laughed at the Sony logo!
After reading your analysis, I feel like Sony is in damage control. If their motivation is market domination, then you are spot on and they have dropped the ball.
But if they are trying to turn just a small profit on their machine, then this course of action makes sense to me. I imagine that this kind of damage control is about spending less money and using the momentum they already have to make sure the unimpressive performance of their PS3 brand does not cripple their next strategy for other brands(including PS4?).
Unfortunately, if you accept my view, the person who loses out is you: the man who already owns a PS3. If Sony is not defending the brand and encouraging the development of awesome exclusive titles then it’s you who is looking at the missed potential and thinking that it could have been better.
Sony has realised it is not financially viable to support 3rd party exclusives as the profits are not good enough. Instead they are focusing on titles developed by studios they own.
However, I would have thought such a big game like Final Fantasy XIII would have been the exception. In some ways, the PS3 is still the best system for Final Fantasy fans as Final Fantasy Versus XIII is still a PS3 exclusive.