Traditionally, video game titles available exclusively on a platform might dramatically influence popularity of such platform among gamers. However, the age of exclusive video games is ending due to increased development cost of titles, believe high-ranking executives of Microsoft Corp. and Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

“In the past, in the eighties and nineties, [exclusivity of titles] 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. […] Given the production costs of the games, it is hardly possible for developers to commit themselves exclusively to someone,” said Boris Schneider-Johne, product manager for Xbox 360 at Microsoft Germany, in an interview with Golem.de web-site (parts from which were translated by GameRush).

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. also believes that going forward the importance of titles exclusive to a single platform will be declining. Nevertheless, Sony believes that its own game development as well as investments to help game developers to take advantage of the PlayStation console will eventually pay off.

“We believe that investment in our own intellectual properties – as particularly Phil Harrison and I tried to do in the last five years with SingStar, or with The Getaway, or with Buzz! – these are ours, we can put them in our cupboard. It’s like a patent. We can take them forward. We have to accept more and more that [content platform] holders themselves cannot have exclusives unless they’re given millions and millions of dollars not to develop a particular game for one particular platform,” said David Reeves, president and chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz web-site. 

In fact, Mr. Reeves was slightly less convincing than his colleague from Microsoft concerning the dusk of exclusive titles. According the head of SCEE, it will hardly be possible to ink exclusive agreements with publishers, but such deals are still possible with actual developers.

“For developers, and you could take someone like Quantic Dream for example – a great game, it takes a lot of time to develop, they need a little bit of funding, external development. In exchange, it’s exclusive – that works. So exclusivity possibly with developers is more likely that exclusivity with publishers. […] So I think we have to accept that exclusivity is not a thing of the past, but it is probably with publishers,” Mr. Reeves clarified his position.

Microsoft also agrees that both creating games in-house is important, however, it still hopes that major publishers like Activision or Electronic Arts may still release titles exclusively available for a particular game platform from time to time.

“We are in a situation that there is a head-to-head race on several consoles and that nobody is super clear in leadership – especially in matters of the PlayStation 3 against Xbox 360. Now Sony makes its own games for the console, we make our own games for the console. The titles are exclusive, as they are also attempts turnout the best of the console, but someone like Electronic Arts or Activision can have a business model of rarely developing for a console exclusively. Therefore, the exclusive title is a little less important,” added Mr. Schneider-Johne.

The most popular video game released this year – Grand Theft Auto IV – is available on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which made the title exceptionally popular. The lesson of Rockstar and Take Two Interactive will certainly be considered by other game developers and publishers, which will catalyze creation of higher amount of cross-platform video games. It is clear that both Microsoft and Sony understand that, but what is not truly certain is how exactly both companies plan to attract attention to their video game platforms in case all the games are available for both.

Tags: Microsoft, Sony, Playstation, Xbox