Rob Dyer, senior vice president of publisher relations at Sony America, has stated his belief that although the Xbox 360 boasts a pretty substantial third party line-up, its first-party offerings can’t hold a candle to what Sony is churning out with PlayStation 3.
Speaking to the chaps at IndustryGamers, Dyer commented, "They have very few first-party studios at Microsoft. Bungie’s next Halo is the last one, Rare rarely puts out anything, you’ve got Peter Molyneux with his Fable stuff… but they don’t have first-party development studios inside at Redmond or anywhere for that matter. We do."
“So rather than putting their money behind that, they’ve been going to Epic or Valve or BioWare to do what they did with Mass Effect, and that’s where they throw their dollars."
Dyer wasted no time in highlighting the company’s global success, and firmly believes that the electronics manufacturer is poised to overtake the Microsoft juggernaut in the United States, too.
"We’re not going to compete with Microsoft on that front," he continued. "But what we have is a global business here. Our global business is bigger than 360’s and will continue to get bigger than 360, and people are seeing that. We passed them in Europe and they don’t even exist in Japan, and we’re going to catch them and pass them here in the US as well."
Elsewhere, the executive stated that third-party console exclusives aren’t going to transpire "nearly as often" in the future, though pointed out that post-release content and advertising will give punters the nudge they need to plump for one platform or the other. Examples include the PS3 release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which outsold its 360 counterpart and included the Joker as a playable character.
"The PS3 version outsold the 360 version, and what we’ve said to [developers] is, ‘if you take advantage of what the PS3 can deliver – more content on the Blu-ray disc, better graphics, being able to get more of what the player wants onto the disc – you’re going to see those sales translate’,” he said.