Sony: exclusives hold back the industry
Would rather bag unique in-game content.
Securing unique in-game content is more important than bagging full platform exclusives, so says a Sony exec.
Speaking in an interview with Scrawl FX, MLB 11: The Show brand manager Scott McCarthy explained that a platform exclusive release limits a game's potential.
Clearly, nobody wants to see that happen, so Sony would rather a game ships across multiple platforms but feature unique content on PlayStation systems to give it the edge.
"We work very closely with our third parties publishers, not necessarily to lock down games exclusively, but to lock up exclusive parts of games," he said. "A good example is Batman: Arkham Asylum, where you could only play as the Joker on PlayStation 3.
"When you make a title exclusive, you limit its promotional power; we don't want to do that. We want games to be as big as possible - it's great for the industry.
"However, we want to make sure that you play it on the best system possible, so we like to take parts of games and make them exclusive to the PlayStation system."
A noble sentiment, to be sure, but there are some mixed messages going on here. Only last month the platform holder took the time to remind everyone that over 20 PlayStation 3 exclusives are due out this year.