Microsoft: Exclusives “Less Important”
While exclusives may still define a console, Microsoft’s Boris Schneider-Johne, product manager for Xbox 360 in Germany, does not think so, believing exclusive titles to be losing their influence and thus becoming “less important.”
“In the past, in the eighties and nineties, that was a major issue. I remember the big ‘Mario vs Sonic’ debates. What we see today is that the influence of exclusive titles on the sales curves becomes ever smaller,” he said. “In addition, we are in a situation where there is a head-to-head race on several consoles and nobody is super clear in leadership – especially in matters of the PlayStation 3 against Xbox 360.”
Schneider-Johne also explained how the influence of exclusive titles on console sales was on the decline and that, given the costs of development, publishers and developers “rarely” accept console exclusivity.
In a way I agree with the man, but then again I love seeing exclusive games as they give me an incentive in buying a particular console. What do you think?