Sony says, “We don’t buy exclusivity.”

July 3rd, 2007 by Dane Dyche in Business, Wii, Xbox360

If you pick up the latest issue of Playstation Magazine you will find a very interesting interview with SCEA President, Jack Tretton. A post made on the GamesRadar forums highlights two quotes from this interview.

“We have a very different approach to exclusives than some of our competitors. We don’t buy exclusivity. We don’t fund development. We don’t, for lack of a better term, bribe somebody to only do a game on our platform. We earn it…”

“Microsoft is too dependent on the third-party community, and Nintendo is too depended on first-party. We like to feel that we got a pretty good mix.”

With the recent losses of exclusive PS3 titles such as the Devil May Cry 4, Ace Combat 6, and so on to the Xbox 360, there’s a lot to worry about. Exclusives, as the past has shown, can make or break a console. One could wonder how the original Playstation would have done if Square hadn’t jumped off the Nintendo ship to make Final Fantasy VII for them. Jump ahead and you’ll see that it was 3^rd party exclusives that defined the Playstation 2 with amazing titles from Square, Enix, Capcom, Konami etc. Microsoft has certainly taken a page out of Sony’s book by nabbing every exclusive possible and stealing just as many away from competitors. Just look how well Nintendo has been able to survive on first party exclusives and a little innovation here and there.

Mr. Tretton was accurate about Nintendo being too dependent on 1^st party, but things are slowly changing due to the ridiculous sales of the Wii and DS in Japan and abroad. Japanese developers in particular are quickly seeing Nintendo as a bandwagon that’s ok to hop back on. One example is Dragon Quest IX going to the DS now instead of a Sony platform. Microsoft on the other hand, while being heavily reliant on 3^rd party support has obviously helped their first party by buying Bungie and Rare. The Xbox 360 is starting to look somewhat similar to that of the PS2, in that there are a few superb 1^st party games and a ton of great 3^rd party ones. With this said, it’s still early enough in the game for all three big console players to make some rumbles and move a few eyes. However, if Sony loses a few more big games like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Final Fantasy XII, it could be a wound that the PS3 may never fully heal from.

Tags: Business, Wii, Xbox360