Sony America’s director of hardware marketing John Koller has stated that the concept of platform software exclusivity is a thing of the past, a belief primarily attributed to the rise in development costs seen in this generation of consoles.
Speaking to VG247, Koller said, “Exclusivity is something that doesn’t truly exist in this cycle,” adding, “What does exist is first-party product. That’s your exclusive product.”
The executive went on to recall the previous console generation and how Sony acquired numerous exclusives in Grand Theft Auto and Final Fantasy, observing that lower development costs at the time meant developers wouldn’t “feel the need to advertise that across all platforms.”
“Exclusivity in the last console was a much different proposition, because developers would have smaller development costs, and they wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to advertise that across all platforms,” he said.
“At that time we had a Grand Theft Auto exclusive, we had EA Sports at the beginning of PS2, we had Final Fantasy. And then we had a tremendous line-up of first-party games, that started off with the Jak & Daxters but went to the SOCOMs.”
“We go to the next gen and Microsoft has the same thing. So you either have your first-party line-up, or you write cheques, and you need to buy that down,” concluded Koller.
2009 is looking particularly rosy as far as PS3 exclusives go, with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Heavy Rain and God of War III just a few of the highlights on offer.