Timed exclusive and exclusive content is where the industry is headed, sadly.

I wonder if people know, this movement isn’t free. It comes at great cost to the consumer in the form of smaller 1st party studios and less 1st party games. That means less games overall for gamers in the world.

That’s pitting fire against fire and evening the playing field to match what 360 execs have been promoting for years…but I would rather have more Starhawks, Halo Wars, God of Wars, Banjos, Twisted Metals, ICOs, Crackdowns, and fresh new games/IPs. The sales don’t support that production, unfortunately. I guess the gamers just didn’t understand the ramifications of supporting these tactics years ago.

So, we’ll probably see more 1st party studios go away, retaining only the top talent, and we’ll see more timed exclusive/exclusive deals from the console companies in the future. Don’t misunderstand, 1st party won’t evaporate completely, just get smaller you see…if this trend continues which it seems to be doing.

Instead of spending 50 million to make Game X. You a fraction of that, say 5 million and secure exclusive content on a hot new 3rd party title. It’s worked for 360 for years upon years. Nintendo and especially Sony have been dabbling with it, but this may be the future and it’s coming right out of the Xbox and 360 playbook. Those angry at Ubisoft probably had no problem when this stuff was going on for their fave machine.

Ubisoft was going to make this content regardless. I suppose the PS3 version is the version to get this holiday.