There’s an interesting interview on MSNBC with SCEA CEO Jack Tretton, regarding the PlayStation 3’s first year in North America. Points discussed include the PlayStation 3’s launch, problems Sony have had to overcome and exclusive titles.
Check out the interview here.
Nice read, I don’t really mind about exclusive titles tbh - if a game wants to go multiplatform - let them.
It only means that the company will get a far better profitability on that franchise and allow further improvement on future instalments to be created.
You can easily argue companies like EA following this trend and having the experience diluted heavily because they didn’t concentrate on having titles either ported correctly or developed with enough detail to the console its originating.
But then that risk is always dependant on developer.
You could argue back and forth all day I guess….
Just a thought.
Comment by JohnSketch — Dec 5, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
I think we can all agree that 2008 will be the year of the Playstation. Lets just hope that this will continue thru to 2009 - onwards.
Comment by E-ROLE — Dec 5, 2007 @ 12:42 pm
It is a good read and a great point made by Jack about this being like a 9 inning Basball game !!!
And also well noted that although Sony do usually fall behind in the first innings, its more often than not them singing after the 9th
Also JohnSketch, I’m with you on the exclusives thing, but theres no denying its nice to have some big hiting ones.
Comment by Johnny5_Hull — Dec 5, 2007 @ 12:47 pm
“I don’t know that we were ever considered arrogant by consumers.”
Err, I beg to differ, Mr Tretton.
The WHOLE PlayStation Nation was saying so, you just didn’t want to read the blogs because you knew you were getting slaughtered in there by fans and in shops by both Microsoft and Nintendo…
…and still are, by the way!
I see this interview as nothing more than propaganda by Sony. It’s poisonous.
Comment by Zed Zee — Dec 5, 2007 @ 1:22 pm
Exclusives in past generations may not have mattered, but they do matter in this generation because of the difference in architecture between the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Developing for Xbox 360 is essentially the same as developing for the PC, hence why alot of games are released on both PC and XBox 360. Developing for the PS3 is a whole other way of thinking and working. Unless the game engine is built to embrace these vastly different ways of outputting information to the screen, then the ports will fail.
COD4 withstanding, so far the only teams that have tapped into the true potential of the PS3 have been Insomniac and Naughty Dog. Their offerings have shone on the PS3 as they have built their engines specifically around the PS3’s way of thinking and doing things.
All the other games that have been ported have frankly been piss poor quality in comparison.
A team that has to get a game out on 2 consoles will invariably write their game engine to the lowest denominator which in this case is the Xbox 360. But things that work fine on the Xbox 360, will not work as well on the PS3. By all accounts, Valve’s Orange Box is the latest example of porting PC code over the PS3 without proper optimizations and refactoring.
To do the job properly and to get the best out of both consoles, you really need dedicated teams that embrace the respective architectures and therefore get the best out of them.
It will be interesting to see how they managed the Unreal Engine will work on the PS3, as quite a few 3rd Party licencees of that engine will be looking to see how well it performs for their games.
If the Unreal team are not using all, if not most, of the SPE’s then Unreal Tournament will be average. There you go, I’ve gone and said it. As it is essentially a Multi-Player engine/game, it will be interesting to see how it stacks up against WarHawk, it’s closest competitor at the moment.
Comment by Savage — Dec 5, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
Exclusives have been fanboy ammunition for years. They should really only be important to people who harbour a competitive spirit - like monster CEOs and skulking marketing ninja types, not real people like us. I’m happy with what we’ve got… not to mention what’s to come.
:)
Comment by rooee — Dec 5, 2007 @ 3:17 pm
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