Cavin-SmithIf next-gen has taught us anything, it's taught us to re-think the way games are developed and distributed. High development costs and (so far) small hardware numbers are pushing game-makers to reach as wide an audience as possible to recoup their budget. As a result, Sony is bleeding exclusives to the Xbox 360, making it harder to justify the greater cost of the Playstation 3.
Virtua Fighter 5 is the latest title to have its distribution split. In a joint statement between SEGA of America and SEGA Europe today, the company revealed that it would be porting the game to Microsoft's console for release in late Summer 2007.
Despite the loss of exclusivity, Virtua fans are going to be hard pressed to wait several long months over the February 20th date for the PS3 version. It is unknown whether or not any new features will be added to the 360 incarnation.