There are reasons why some games stay exclusive to one platform while others release on all major platforms. And if you're wondering why a game like Rockstar's Agent is exclusive to the PlayStation 3, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has the answer…and he wonders why Insomniac hasn't gone multiplatform yet.
The info comes courtesy of a recent Eurogamer interview , where Pachter spoke about the cause behind the developer's decision to keep Agent restricted to Sony's console. First and foremost, he believes exclusives will soon become a thing of the past, but he's hardly the only analyst to give voice to that theory. Secondly, Pachter's "inside information" concerning the behind-the-scenes story for Agent is as follows:
"When Microsoft paid Take-Two to make GTA IV non-exclusive… In other words, GTA IV was going to be a PS3 exclusive, but Microsoft paid Rockstar and Take-Two to make it a non-exclusive, and they paid them a lot. The number I’ve heard, and I’m sure this is right, is $75m, and that probably includes the funding for the first DLC packs too. It’s more than the $50m that people talk about.
And Sony – I’m not sure if they had a firm agreement but they may have had a handshake – said to Take-Two, 'You’ve got to give us something else.' And the 'something else' was a zombie game that Rockstar wanted to work on. But while Rockstar was in the planning phase, Dead Rising came out and Left 4 Dead was announced. Rockstar realised they were up against a saturated market and Valve, and, 'What can we possibly do that will be any better than what Valve’s done?' They started again and that’s when they came up with the idea of The Agent, which nobody actually knows what it is. That is the back story."
Well, thanks for that. We had an inkling that the game in question was sort of like a consolation prize to Sony after GTAIV was confirmed to hit the PS3 and Xbox 360 at the same time (you may recall that past GTAs debuted with timed exclusivity on the PS2 and only later arrived on the Xbox). But right now, Pachter says it's just plain "foolish to sign an exclusive deal" and he has "repeatedly told" Insomniac that they should go multiplatform:
"As if those guys couldn’t create something – of course they could. It’s not like Sony came up with the art and graphics on Ratchet & Clank. The Insomniac guys are nuts not to do multi-platform. But they like their deal with Sony, so they’ll keep doing exclusives. LittleBigPlanet guys, Media Molecule, I feel the same way. What were they thinking selling to Sony? They must be Liberal Democrats!"
Well, now you've done it, Pachter. PS3 fans aren't gonna take too kindly to that, especially when most of them believe many developers choose the PS3 because it's the only console that has the raw processing power to bring their vision to life. How many times has a designer specifically said this very thing? How many times have we been told that games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves , God of War III , and Heavy Rain needed the PS3's power? And why do we get the feeling that Media Molecule would say very much the same thing in relation to LittleBigPlanet 2 ?
Well, that's not really Pachter's forte, of course; it's numbers and business predictions. And it's tough to argue against the common-sense claim that multiplatform games obviously have the opportunity to sell a lot more copies. But Pachter, developers aren't necessarily stupid…they might just be sticking solely with the PS3 for a reason outside of the money realm.
Related Game(s): Agent
Pachter has always been a know-nothing lame duck. Month after month we read these idiotic, out-dated statements and wonder, how does this guy still have a job doing anything??? Boycott Pachter employer. They are dumber than him.
WOW I'm shock once everyone saw the Insomniac Game comment they decide to comment read the damn full article for god sakes dumb asses i read this news long time ago already. Michael which i mostly hated but this was awesome.
What little comments you put are negative. Dumbasses? I say not!
Patcher is a doos….
Anyway never mind that.
Maybe these developers stay exclusive for a very good reason? Maybe they want their game to be better than anything else in their category. Maybe they want it to be a technical masterpiece… and just in case Patcher hasn't realized is that all PS3 exclusives stand out miles above the rest.
Sure there are some great multiplats out there but does any of them measure up to exclusives? No in my opinion they don"t.
Some developers still do what they do because of pride and respect and not for the money…
Is always for the money no matter what. Yeah theirs pride but money is just more powerful. Insomniac Games all belong to Sony plus all the money is from Sony billion dollars account. Insomniac Games is there just to make a awesome game Only on PlayStation. If they were to leave go multiplatform they can make a awesome game but if they try to publish the game along and fund everything it can be too risky. That's why they will always be loyal to Sony but maybe with their second studio they can make other games multiplatform with what Sony pays them it will be a good business move for them.
i dont think insomniac is owned by sony.
People always say money is more powerful, but what's more important to YOU? A person like YOU could be a game developer. They may be part of a big, bad "company" but they're still human beings.
@john, no insomniac is still independent.
Last edited by Kowhoho on 5/17/2010 6:48:17 AM
"liberal democrats"? What does that even mean? I'm a policy wonk in DC and that's the stupidest, most nonsensical terminology I think I've ever heard. Seriously bad.
I'm not sure what he meant by that either.
Patcher's a di**. Why does anyone listen to him? Is it cause he's on GT.com all the f'n time talking his brains out, and we gamers are supposed to give a flying f***? /rant
I'm not surprised by his statements. I've been reading his comments for a while now and it's become obvious to me why he believes the way he does.
He doesn't understand that some people take pride in their work. He never has, so why would he expect anyone else to?
Okay here's what I gathered from the article.
1. Pachter is only good with predicting numbers, he should stay out of relations and popularity of games within the video game industry otherwise he just embarasses himself or creates mountains out of molehills.
STAY OUT OF IT PACHTER!!!!
2. Exclusives will always be around so long as there is more than one console on the market. Competition drives creativity and creativity drives sales. Look at the Wii. No one had done motion controls as well as Nintendo before it, or marketed it well like Nintendo did by bundling it with Wii Sports.
3. Sony has the technical and artistic advantage over MS. MS got lucky with Halo, and the success of Live drove sales and the rise of the social gamer. Sony has many things over the 360 in technical terms, such as:
– blu-ray
– built-in hard disk drive
– free network
– more cell processors
– a similar price to the competition
– 1:1 motion controls
– 3D gaming and movies
360 has DVD, a detachable HDD, a high fail-rate and an excellent online network that pioneered online console gaming.
4. Pachter has no right to comment for or decide the ways in which developers do business, whether it is to remain exclusive or go multi-plat is up to the developer, not him. Sony is reknowned for it's excellent treatment and creative leniency towards developers, MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHING!!!! And the PS3's console install base is growing bigger than 360's, and showing more promise than Wii.
5. Pachter clearly prefers 360 over PS3, otherwise he would have referred to first party and third party exclusives on both sides, not just Sony. I think he's just a little cheesed off that Heavy Rain, God of War and Uncharted aren't on 360. Well here's a hint why they aren't Pachter, COS THEY'RE TOO BIG FOR THE 360 TO HANDLE!!!!
Ben, do you know who employs this Pachter guy? Does anyone really listen to him? What makes his word and predictions of greater value over others? Is it cos he's paid to study trends and make predictions? All of us here at PSXextreme do that already, and we don't get paid to do it!!!
To Pachter:
"It's not like Microsoft came up with the art and graphics of Halo. The Bungie guys are nuts not to do it multiplatform. But they like their deal with Microsoft, so they'll keep doing exclusives. Gears of War guys, Epic Games, I feel the same way. What were they thinking selling to Microsoft? They must be Liberal Democrats."
Last edited by Dancemachine55 on 5/17/2010 2:18:34 AM
Developers don't make games for free. Especially developers like Rockstar and Insomniac. When they make a game they definitely want it to be quality especially because quality usually breeds profit. Everyone's bottom line in this world is to make enough money to put food on the table. They don't just make games for pride. If they did they'd either be finding a new job or living homeless while making games. And I thoroughly disagree to the fact that all exclusives are better than all multi platform games. Also PS3 has great exclusives, but so does Xbox and Wii. Your a close minded ignorant person if you can't see that. All this VG bashing is crap especially when you could be enjoying the fruits of the gaming industries labor. Why not? Especially if you've got the money to do it. This blind pride for a console is a joke. It could be taken on it's own comedy tour. Grow up.
On exclusives though. I think exclusives breed competition. Without exclusives the industry will become stale.
So true.
In the end, the gamer is the winner.
All consoles have their great exclusives. Even the Neo Geo had great games even though it hardly sold consoles.
This is why I have all 3, PS3, 360 and Wii. I only have the best of the best for each console, making me (the gamer) the winner of all.
Insomniac Games, games are all made possible by using Sony's massive billion dollars account. They won't leave Sony's awesome partnership. Sony has tried to buy them but that Ted Price heart company he doesn't sell.
Sony and Take Two Interactive had a contract for GTA IV to be exclusive to PS3 but in order to break such thing Sony was going to need more then just a refund so they allow the contract to be broken if RockStar North next games exclusive to PLAYSTATION 3. Sony basically won here because they still got GTA plus the DLC. I can't wait to see a trailer for agent RockStar North makes awesome games.
i dont think sony paid for GTA4 exclusivity. i believe they stated that they wont be paying for exclusivity this generation, at least early in the generation. Hell, they let final fantasy 13 go so i believe them. it was probably just some kind of agreement of good faith where rockstar/take two let sony know that they were going to make the game multiplatform and sony asking for some type of consolation. It also seems like sony's focus is on new IP now so they allowed GTA4 to be multiplatform.
@Ivan_PSP,
Is it your intent to leave out numerous words in every sentence so your posts are seem so totally cryptic???
Damn, I had to break out my "Solid Snake Decoder Ring" and even make contact with Octacon, just to try & make sense of them…..
Sorry, but even with their help, none of us can even come close to deciphering much of that monumental dribble.
@Bikersaint,
OMG!!! haha!
what the hell? does pacter think that hes the only one with that info? insider information? we all knew that microsoft paid rockstar a lot of money to bring GTA4 to the 360 at the same time as the ps3 version. they paid for the timed DLC exclusivity too, we knew that. some say 50 million he says 70 million+, it doesnt matter, its still a big chunk of money.
Also, why does he say that this is from insider information? I remember clearly that jack trenton was on GTtv after moore showed that GTA tatoo. He clearly said that their relationship with rockstar was pretty good and that they let go of GTA exclusivity but they are getting a new exclusive ip from them. i dont think that they said it was agent then. so he's basically repeating what jack trenton and what we all knew from back before GTA4 released. so his inside information consists of facts dating back a few years ago which he can only prove now. seriously, this guy needs to get with the program.
however i do partially agree with his theory that exclusives will die out. third party exclusives will become rarer as time goes by, its simple business "logic". But first party exclusives will always be there to push the envelope. a few third party developers would do just that. Sony's exclusive lineup will set themselves apart from the rest, thats my prediction pacter.
by the way, have you guys seen the supposed leak on a swedish site about the price for Natal? i think they said it converts to about 200 bucks. if thats true then natal would go like the 360's hd dvd drive. I'm optimistic that it will be below the 200 price tag but knowing what microsoft does to their peripherals, it definitely wont go below 150.
LoL, You have big imaginations but no business mind.
Sony did paid big money but decide to change the rule at the end. Good faith LMFAO never, money is the only faith in business my friend. You actually believe Sony doesn't pay for exclusive LMFAO wow. They pay for so many already aside from all the ones they make. 70 million for both DLC and marketing and other crap. The exclusive is AGENT they show the name at E3 that's the exclusive. Michael Patcher knows more then all this idiots here.
The guy has more source i don't like him because he comments about video game to get news and well is good for him and the firm he works.
@Ivan
Is that you Mr Pachter?
This guy is such an idiot, not everyone is Activision wanting to make as much money as posible.
Sure devs/publishers want to make money but there are alot of studios out there that are artists and know that making a game exclusive to one console will nearly always get better results than a multi platform game.
OMG, Heavy Rain just came to mind.
Quantic Dream and David Cage were out to make some money, but it was their vision of doing something different with the video game format that took precendence over all else.
They wanted to create a masterpiece, and by advertising Heavy Rain as a "different" type of videogame, they got attention and sales alongside it.
It takes a lot of money and a lot of creative ideas or solid mechanics to make a popular game sell well these days.
quick question for every one here. how many consoles do u own and what are they ?
for me i own two, three if u count my psp. Ps3 and 360. i buy four games a month for my ps3 and one game each for my 360 and Psp so i don't care about excluves.
As a gaming collector, I own 20 consoles & handhelds, plus close to 1500 games(so far),
But, I'm still 100% for all Playstation exclusives (whether it be on the PS3 or the PSP too).
I own a damn collection a lot 7 PSP all mine.
7 PSP
4 PS3
6 PS2
3 Xbox 360
3 Xbox
5 PS1
3 PC
PSP is my number #1 LoL i got some YouTube videos showing off my consoles LoL.
I smell bullsh1t
Why hasent Sony bought Insomniac Studios yet?
I'm pretty sure that Insomniac would like to stay independent. They still have a great relationship with Sony, though.
Yes, and if Ferrari and Lamborghini started making economy cars on an automated production line they could probably sell more units. Thanks for the insight Pachter.
Liberal democrats??? On what level am I a liberal democrat for wanting a capitalist society to do away with crappy systems to make way for the truly powerful systems. This guy seems more liberal wanting to spread the wealth around.
Multiplatform is only OK if you're going to deliver the best possible experience on all platforms…not develop for the lowest common denominator simply to "guarantee an equal experience" across platforms. On the other hand, the developer could be seen as 'favoring' some platforms over another by making a title better on one than the other. The latter issue is why I think exclusives are perfectly fine…esp. depending on the size of the developer (e.g. Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerrilla Games and Sucker Punch are quite small, employee-wise, right?), where they may not have the resources to have multiple teams working on each platforms.
Pachter probably also supports the failed 3DO experiment to have a common hardware platform spec made by multiple manufacturers.
Last edited by xnonsuchx on 5/17/2010 7:51:07 AM
xnonsuchx,
LOL on the 3DO comment,
I've still got my Panasonic FZ10(the slimline one) & I'm constantly going back to it to play "IceBreakers" 160 levels whenever I can.
Sony better buy Insomniac right NOW!
Why is this guy always ripping on Sony?
I can't believe how many comments I just read along the lines of:
"Hey, it's not all about money you know! Some developers just love making games for PlayStation because they love PlayStation and they love the PlayStation fans too!"
Either you guys are 5 years old or you're living on cloud cuckoo land!
Look how many exclusives Sony lost this generation, at least 5 or 6 major properties. Do you think those companies went multi-platform because they had some kind of a problem with Sony? They went multi-plat because they could double their profits and their wage packets!
If you were a developer and you could earn a 1 million dollar bonus making an exclusive or could make an extra million if you went multi-platform, seriously, what would you do?
**That is in fact a rhetorical question but I await dozens of responses saying they would make Sony exclusives for free, just for the love**
*sigh*
Yes, that's the business side of it.
However, there are people who get into said troubled industries to create a vision in ones mind. These people are called "artists" and have that one motive…to bring that vision alive.
At times, you may need the best equipment or best support, therefore, they will use the best tools or work with the most supportive people.
Believe it or not, there are still people left in the world, that is increasingly becoming greed motivated, who entirely base themselves around art. You CANNOT create a piece of art if you have any other intention in your mind that pollutes the creative process i.e. How much money i can make.
Who do you think the BUSINESS men who own the entertainment industries are going to be looking to hire? Puppets with a hunger for money and don't mind putting in advertisements on products for extra gain (because i'm sure the people who made this work had a vision of having advertisements of the new iPhone in it)….why on earth would a BUSINESS man want an artist? Hey, throw them in that niche category called "independent".
To sign off, i'll throw two titles out there that are created by artists for the correct reasons and chose mediums that married their idea i.e. tools or great support…
Flower
Last Guardian
Last edited by Lotusflow3r on 5/17/2010 9:13:39 AM
Double you wish. The perks of making exclusive contract is that let say the IP holder's game flops they still get pay no matter what. Plus Contact cover losses.
Exclusives are nearly always better than multi platforms games no matter what platform it is (PS3 or 360). That is why there will always be exclusives, not because devs 'love' Sony.
Its true that this industry is becoming more and more about making money but there are still devs out there that prefer to make the best game they can rather than just shoveling out something to make money.
Sophist,
OK, look how many exclusives they lost….look how many exclusives they've gained.
Examples include Heavy Rain, Little Big Planet, Mod Nation Racers, Flower…
Exclusive games come and go, what matters is games that drive genre forward, or create new genre/sub-genre. If Sony has to lose a third party exclusive or two to gain innovative new exclusive IPs, perhaps it's worth it?
I think some people make games because it's what they love to do, money is just a bonus. Sony offers the better platform so they can make a better game. They make a better game, have more pride, are happy with their accomplishments and therefore are happy with their paychecks.
Well, there really are no technical reason why littlebigplanet should be on ps3 only, I'll give him that.
Other than that I am one of the few who thinks that the multiplatform games generally speaking are better than the platform specific ones, so I see no problem in games being multi platform.
/me is heading back to current favorites DA:Origins, AC II and Skate3.
Sony owns LittleBigPlanet plus the Xbox 360 only holds 8.5 GB the first LBP was 40GB.
The game was 40gb? What took that much space?
the level creator tools, all the levels, uncompressed visuals and audios.
@ sophist says a xbox 360 fanboy or prove that u have more then one system.
currently playing
Ps3 – Heavy Rain and God of War III
PsP – Fat Princess: Fistful of cake
360 – SplinterCell: Conviction
I don't really know what this means but I'll assume you're accusing me of being a 360 fanboy?
I own both systems.
Currently playing:
Nothing.
Analysts seem to always cause trouble. Look what the NYSE Analysts went and did…caused a Recession. Other Analysts cause gas prices to remain where they are. They are so negative. When was the last time a Analyst said something positve about anything? I bet there all divorced losers.
Sounds like Mr Pachter has a case of the swollen ego. *HE TOLD*?? He told who what? Where in hell does he think he has the legitimacy to tell a major developer what they should and should not be doing? The guy is at best an industry analyst and at worst a 2-bit hack. If he's so bloody smart why isn't he at the helm of a major developer developing multi-platform games and driving a Lamborgini?
The gall of the man is breathtaking. And as for the liberal democrats swipe at the end…well, I'm going out on a limb and guessing that Pachter has some connection with the UK since the UK general election just put the Liberal Democrats in the position of 'king maker' since they could decide who to work with to form a coalition government. However as I always say, what has politics got to do with it? Keep politics where it belongs – as far away as possible from video games.
The more drivel like this that Pachter blathers, the less I pay attention – except to mildly eviscerate his position for fun that is…
Lol "the gall of the man" TheHighlander… He really does push it doesn't he. Bet he is earning a good salary though…
The Lib-Con UK government will no doubt be an interesting sceptical to watch.
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"