Kaz Hirai: Sony can 're-evaluate' paying for PS3 exclusives

by Andrew Yoon { May 30th 2008 at 11:00AM }

A long time ago, Jack Tretton mentioned that Sony will not pay for PS3 exclusivity in this generation of games. "We have a very different approach to exclusives than some of our competitors. We don't buy exclusivity. We don't fund development. We don't, for the lack of a better term, bribe somebody to only do a game on our platform," he noted. Instead, Sony tries to seduce developers to make better games on the system, and use the appeal of the PS3 hardware to secure exclusives.

This strategy has meant a bevy of formerly PS2-exclusive series to become multiplatform successes on Xbox 360 and PC. However, Kaz Hirai told ThreeSpeech "that's something that we can re-evaluate." High-profile exclusives act as differentiating reasons for system purchases. PS3 has a strong first-party line-up, but it will need to pursue third-party exclusives with an even stronger bite. However, with games being so expensive in this generation, such a proposal may be difficult. "It's also something that the publishers need to make a business decision on. Ultimately, it becomes a dialogue – if it makes sense for them to go exclusive, that's a business decision that they need to make. But generally speaking, because of the investments that publishers need to make in this round of hardware, it's going to be more difficult for publishers to make that decision."

Tags: exclusives, hirai, kaz-hirai

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

GridloQ @ May 30th 2008 11:02AM

Money talks.

browntown @ May 30th 2008 11:06AM

I don't think they will start paying until they are profitrable. So in 2010 we may start hearing about exclusives which SONY will fund.

PSPDog @ May 30th 2008 11:10AM

They didn't need to pay for them before when they were king of the hill. Now that there is some competition, and especially since their main competitor is willing to pay, Sony doesn't have much of a choice. The game companies just want to get paid, there's no loyalty, it's just business.

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 11:18AM

Totally agree. They banked on brand loyalty way to much (especially in America, where all you have to do is look as professional sports to see we'll go wherever the money is). It was a grave miscalculation/error on their part and Microsoft has really one-upped them in this respect. In all honesty that is what Microsoft does best, buy things to compensate for their own lack of ability to drive content development.

PeacefulOutrage @ May 31st 2008 8:21AM

I never believed the "we don't pay for exclusives" line anyway. Stuff like co-marketing where they share or pay for a games advertising with the PS logo at the end has been done for a long time. that's just one way to get a developer on board, especially when advertising can get very expensive and eat into game profits.

fersis @ May 30th 2008 11:16AM

SONY games division will become profiable at this year end.
Im more of the likes of NOT paying for exclusives.

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 11:40AM

It's not a question of profitability of first party games, its branding.

Consumer associate certain games or genres (like GTA, and RPG's were with PS2) to certain systems, this helps enable the system to have an identity or definable brand. Microsoft has aggressively targeted these to try to bring PS2 gamers (read: majority) to transition to the 360 and not PS3). They also went to japan and sign exclusive deals with companies that the hardcore gamers revere, such as Treasure, to create the market they have now. So far they have been pretty successful, just look at their lineup of XBLA offerings.

To that end, though, and where they are behind (as is tradition in Microsoft in innovation. buying innovation is all they can do, if you look at all of their internal development, there is a lot of me too stuff, or sequalitis. No company is immune to that, but I feel Sony's strength is its 1st and 2nd party devs. While this is generally great, not every dev is insomniac, which can crank out an AMAZING game every year. This gen has seen a lot of growing pains (especially on PS3) and it takes time for devs get games out. This is the reason PS3 needs to pick up the slack through 3rd party games, and unique exclusives.

CALIX @ May 30th 2008 11:30AM

Sad that exclusivities have come to this, the old American way of selling out....

Thank you wealthy companies for again ruining another business.

I could almost hear (MS) “I got 5 on it”

madsci @ May 30th 2008 11:40AM

They really fucked up by losing GTA and Guitar Hero as exclusives. If they hadn't, they'd be rolling in it by now. Devil May Cry was also a stupid loss. The only real worthwhile exclusives XB had were Halo and Crimson Skies, IMO. Sony should have never given up so many franchises. All that did was give MS more good titles and momentum.

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 11:44AM

Agreed.

Kenology @ May 30th 2008 11:54AM

At the same time, Sony had no idea it would be in the position it's in right now. This why they reneged on a few stances they took prior to the PS3 launch (i.e. "Rumble is last gen" ---> Dual Shock 3, "we don't pay for exclusives" ---> this very article). If anything, Sony is adapting to the market. I agree with you though, had Sony been open to money hatting earlier, it would be interesting to see where things would've been. However, is it true that Sony money hatted Namco for Soul Calibur 3 on PS2?

True_Darknight @ May 30th 2008 11:40AM

Ok So M$ comes in and starts messing with the gaming industry... we knew they would.... Start paying for exclusives... make sub-par machinery... i mean really.. keep your crappy practices to your PCs..... GRRRRR

And yes Sony had exclusives before.. but they didn't pay for them... Developers wanted it that way!

baby sea tuna @ May 30th 2008 11:58AM

Yeah, it's really Microsoft's fault that Sony dropped the ball at the beginning of this generation. It has nothing to do with bringing their machine to market last, not supporting the RPG genre that put food on Sony's table last time around, making the Cell so hard to program for (while simultaneously not going out of their way to help developers...well...develop for it,) and (worst of all) being so arrogant to expect an automatic brand loyalty from both consumers as well as developers, based *solely* on the fact that they were king of the hill last generation (regardless of whether or not they had the best platform.)

Yup, totally "M$'s fault," as you so eloquently put it.

Paul (PSN: heypaul) @ May 30th 2008 12:52PM

This is why I comment on Joystiq instead of the Fanboy sites. The man makes a bold, but reasonable statement, but gets voted to oblivion simply because he voiced something that is not pro-PS3.

The only console I own this generation is a PS3. Feel free to read my post history and see how I defend it. But I'm also reasonable enough to not plug my ears and tell someone to shut up, just because their well-reasoned point is not something I like to hear.

Someone tells you that you screwed up, that everything is your fault. Yeah, it hurts to hear it, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily wrong.

Popfrogs @ May 30th 2008 2:01PM

We only have two kinds of posters here, PS3 fans and Microsoft defenders. The latter kind tend to come out of the woodwork when they feel their precious console and company is under attack.

And they talk about a Sony Defense Force...sheesh.

HektikLyfe @ May 30th 2008 11:41AM

I for one am glad to hear this. Not a complete confirmation by any means but a step in the right direction and a hint that Sony's cockiness may be wavering.

Did they really expect Microsoft to play fair?

T-P-M @ May 30th 2008 11:41AM

Personally I think they should invest the money more into Indy/startup game companies than exclusive established titels. The money would go a lot further. As long as the titles arn't all going exclusive to another system I dodn't really care.

koehler83 @ May 30th 2008 11:46AM

Anyone else see too many Chiefs?

Jack says this. Then Kaz vetoes and says this. Then that old dude from SCEE pipes up with his contradictory 2 cents.

Who is going to make anything happen when the guys upstairs cant come to a conclusion on what's going to happen?

Brodie-san @ May 30th 2008 12:29PM

Bring back Ken I say!
:)

Brodie-san @ May 30th 2008 11:53AM

Not paying for exclusives is all well and good if the hardware is a dream to develop on, your competitor doesn't launch a year before you and such competitors are also not willing to pay for exclusivity.

Considering the PS3 has pretty much scores 0/3 of the above I'm actually surprised there are as many exclusives on the PS3 as there are.

Ironically, as games continue to get bigger and better more developers will start to warm towards the PS3. If anything for the extra leeway 50GB of storage gives you on Blu-ray. I'd be in favour of a moratorium on the "no bribes" rule. Dish out some exclusivity money now to lock good franchises to the platform and then, in a few years (2009, 2010) time, tell the publisher "We're no longer going to pay you to keep Awesome Game 4 exclusive on the PS3."

By then you'd hope the publisher would say: "That's ok. We don't want to put it on another console anyway - considering the install base on the PS3 and how we've developed towards the strengths for that console."

Of course, this theory kinda depends on the perennial bombastic rhetoric from Sony that as developers get used to the PS3 more they'll "realise" they can get more and more out of it than, say, the 360. Whether that is to be seen or not - who knows.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. There are only THREE IPs on rival consoles that I would like to play. "Mass Effect" and "Bioshock" on the 360 and "Super Mario Galaxy" on the Wii. Now, Bioshock will be here in October. As for Mass Effect, I *still* think we'll get a port. Eventually. And I know that the only way I can play SMG in this universe is to play it on a Wii. But, unlike some, I'm not buying a console for one game. (I'm interested in No More Heroes but not THAT interested).

As for Sony exclusives I'm a big MGS fan, same with GT and Final Fantasy, Uncharted was an immense and welcome GIFT, I still want to pick up Warhawk and I can't wait for LBP.

I guess one of the big factors of why people choose one console over an other is the type of games they like. For example: I have an Xbox and I've played and finished Halo and Halo 2. I enjoyed the games but I'm not a fervent zealous fan of the franchise. To each their own I suppose. Halo 3 really doesn't interest me. I've played Gears of War and I thought it was good. It didn't make me want to buy a 360 though.

Some people just prefer certain types of games. And, for me, the PS3 ticks every box. To keep those boxes ticked of course I'm hoping for a continuation of great exclusives and if that means throwing coin at publishers - so be it.

(sorry for the length of this post)

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 12:03PM

I'm right there with you Brodie, really my position on the choice of primary format as well.

Don't ever worry about length of post so long as you are writing intelligent and coherent thoughts.

ComicShaman @ May 30th 2008 11:46AM

Something I've noticed is that there are several JRPGs that have been announced recently as being X360 exclusives. I'm drawing a blank on titles, but there were at least two mentioned on Joystiq recently. My reaction to both was: "Huh. Those look like they should be PlayStation or Wii games." It seems very likely that Microsoft has negotiated exclusives for these games.

I think it's only a secondary goal for Microsoft to increase its popularity in Japan. Really, I think they're trying to kneecap Sony by plucking away at the PlayStation's RPG base. Microsoft is aggressive enough to bankroll these developers to the point that they can endure the hit in sales they will experience by keeping these PlayStation-type games on the X360.

You have to adapt to your competitors. I think Sony is seeing Microsoft's willingness to play a pretty ruthless game of funding exclusives at a loss just to hurt the PlayStation brand, and is now realizing they can't afford to ignore this tactic.

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 11:53AM

Yup I agree.

fersis @ May 30th 2008 12:38PM

besides Microsoft have a lot of money to spend , much more money that SCE has

LeChuck @ May 30th 2008 11:52AM

Microsoft isn't responsible for exclusives having to be paid for. It's due to the fact that game development has gotten a lot more expensive and that neither 360 nor PS3 is dominant in all regions. This is changing as PS3 has always had JP, is taking EU, and NA is only a matter of time. But for now going exclusive to either system and you're losing a big chunk of potential sales. There's no reason to take that hit unless somebody's making it worth your while.

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 11:59AM

That is correct, but there are obvious examples, as well as statements by the companies themselves, of Microsoft paying for exclusivity. Make no mistake, they are doing what they have always been doing as a company, expanding through acquisition.

Where they have no interest in buying exclusivity is where you are seeing titles just go multiplatform from the start.

baby sea tuna @ May 30th 2008 12:12PM

So...um, if they're just thinking of paying for exclusives now, does that mean that UT3 and Haze were previously given to Sony out of the goodness of Epic and Ubisoft's hearts? Man those guys are generous!

reson8er @ May 30th 2008 12:50PM

Sarcasm noted, but your I think your missing their intended business strategy.

The reason those specific games went to Sony as (timed) Exclusives is simple. They had an opportunity to try and cash in on a the rather anemic line up of FPS on the PS3, and create a place for themselves in the market. Think about the FPS market on 360, the word saturated, comes to mind especially around the holiday season. UT3 and Haze (if released at the time) would have been doomed from the start.

Besides UT3 is not exclusive, its a timed exclusive as its always been and a benchmark for Epic to try and establish the Unreal Engine on the PS3.

The fact that Sony has not paid for exclusives is painfully obvious, and hopefully will change with Kaz at the helm. If they want to compete, they have to play by a new set of rules.

Puntachu @ May 30th 2008 12:23PM

damn this reply system; I want reply to brodie-san, but it's not presenting me that option.

You said just about everything I was thinking while I read through the article. Sony's not in the same position with this generation as they were in the last. They need to secure the exclusives now, by whatever means necessary. This pushes developers to get used to coding for the system. Once thats accomplished (provided that the new architecture does show some benefits over the other systems), exclusives will come without being coerced. It's a natural path to follow that if you can only do certain things on the PS3 (again, those benefits of the new architecture really are paramunt to this), that the games will cater more to it... More exclusives/primary development on the PS3.

drdre74 @ May 30th 2008 1:16PM

well someone needs to be fired for even coming up with the idea of not paying. How can you compete if the 360 gets all kinds of exclusive games. Why would someone buy a PS3 over a 360 if all the games they want are only on the 360?

adolson @ May 30th 2008 1:22PM

You are right. However, I don't think Microsoft had to pay much to get Cliffy B or whatever he wants to be called these days to suck Bill Gates down.

Other than Gears...?

kentuckyfried @ May 30th 2008 3:28PM

And at $200 less or so....there's no loyalty in the fan base. The herd is going for whatever's the cheapest, even when the hardware has confirmed, obvious flaws.

adolson @ May 30th 2008 1:21PM

I'd rather all games be timed-exclusives. It sucks that Xbox 360 owners will not get to experience Metal Gear Solid 4, and it sucks that PS3 owners will not get to experience BioShock. Er.. Halo 3.. ;-)

chris.westermann @ May 30th 2008 2:50PM

Welcome to competition with Microsoft, Microsoft buys success. Whether they buy exclusives, buy reviews, buy advertising, or buy propaganda, Microsoft taps into their billions of ill-gotten profits to artificially elevate the Xbox360 into a perception of success, despite it being a mediocre crippled console without lousy design and inferior hardware.
How else can you explain how something with a 30% failure rate can still be considered a superior system to the PS3 with a < 1% failure rate? How else can a company that backed the wrong next gen DVD format toss away HD-DVD and people still claim the Xbox is a next gen entertainment platform? How else can reviews for the same cross platform game a higher score on the Xbox360? How else can paying for a Live membership be considered a superior service to free membership on the PSN? Why is it that may cross platform developers complaing about the PS3 so much yet still end up with a game that matches the Xbox360 on quality and performance?
Sony might be trying to be the "humble" Japanese company (I know, hard to define Sony like that), but they are competing against bullish Americans and they need to figure out that humble won't cut it in this industry.
Sony has to change their policy to get more exclusives, ensure that 3rd parties put effort into PS3 ports, and if need be, start dumping money into viral marketing so that all the pro-Xbox360 Digg articles and reviews can at least be matched by equal pro-PS3 content.
Microsoft infects every industry they enter and this is yet another example of how Microsoft corrupts an industry in order for them to gain popularity and success.

Ysleiro @ May 30th 2008 3:53PM

Man you write as if MS is in it for the money. Oh wait so is Sony. Do not get it twisted my friend both MS and Sony are in it for the money? (one way or the other)

I think you put down the 360 TOO harshly though. By mentioning "how else this and that..." You made good points but someone else can make this point:

"How can the console without a single exclusive AAA title be considered superior than the other console when the other console has about 6 exclusive AAA titles?" Get my drift ? Every single AAA tittle (a tittle with MetaCritic >= 90) on PS3 is also available on 360. But not every AAA on 360 is available on PS3. (Yes titles are coming but I'm talking about current library).

A console is only as good as its games. Blu-ray is great, but apparently not necessary to make good/long games (Oblivion, Gears of War, Mass Effect were all good and long enough and fit on a DVD). The PS3 architecture might be superior but we haven't seen that yet.

MS is a software company and as a result has developed the superior SDK. Developing for 360 is easier and more cost effective not to mention that if you develop for PC porting to 360 is cake.

You can put down the 360 hardware for its faults at the beginning, but you can not put down the development environment on 360. Sony will have a hard time convincing people to not develop for PC and 360 considering how much cheaper it is. This article is an of example how cheap it is.

http://kotaku.com/5011439/far-cry-2-dev-and-port-teams-range-from-175-to-three

I'm not putting down PS3 just saying that while the 360 hardware was a mess the software development scene for 360 is pretty nice.

What will happen once MS finishes off the RRoD problem (which I think they might already have)?

Popfrogs @ May 30th 2008 4:59PM

As I've said before, Microsoft is a software company and Sony is a hardware company. In a perfect world MS would have created the OS and online portion for Sony, while Sony handled the hardware design.

This generation it's 100x more clear. As Sony creates something extremely complex, the software dev packages are hard to use and spotty in the beginning. The firmware isn't mature and is lacking many features. Devs are scared and dev kits cost an arm and a leg.

Meanwhile MS has a piece of junk that is apparently impossible to re-engineer to create reliability (replacements regularly fail, even the latest and greatest models). BUT, their online services are top notch. They have lots of demos, movies, videos, etc. to download...although they make you pay for the "privilege". They also have a mature and simple to use IDE for developers. It makes porting all those X360 "exclusives" to PC a no-brainer and programming games == programming a PC game.

Both companies have made big mistakes this generation, and it's because one of them rushed into market way too soon and forced the other one to rush their product to compete, even if it was a year later. The PS3 continues to evolve, however, and the firmware keeps giving more RAM back to games as they optimize it.

Overall I know I made the right choice buying a PS3 instead. I have been tempted, more than once, to buy the other console, but with reliability, pay for online, crazy expensive *branded* peripherals, and other problems, I'll just play my friends'...who just red ringed 2 months ago. Or I'll play those same games on my PC 6 months later.

CALIX @ May 30th 2008 3:15PM

When console makers compete with money only one thing will happen...... Stale games...
We will all be playing cloned games that won't bring new life to the already established genres. example EA and their beloved Madden, they paid for NFL license so that 2K couldn't compete and now we are not seeing great advances in Football games because of it. ALA backbreaker (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/23592.html) unless of course EA buys them too...

I will agree with the person who stated that Sony should get Indy developers instead of chasing big companies that want millions for exclusive content. New ideas are always better than old stale same old games.

Where would Fist Person Shooters or even 3rd Person Shooters be if it wasn't for Kill switch (http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/itemsearch.asp)
Innovation now made law for such genres.

Indy is the way Sony can stay on top. That’s what made PS2 the top console, and it can happen again with PS3.

I also think that 3rd parties should make up their own minds and not be persuaded by money transactions. Ubisoft has their main lineups but with the money they make off those they invest in new ideas. My main example of this would be Beyond Good and Evil (one of the most innovative games released in 04) it was released on all major platforms and was pretty much over looked by most. Now with its second release it’s making headlines. Major feat for a 3rd party investment....

Bullies always loose in the end....

I like dots :)

Jon Acheson @ May 30th 2008 3:15PM

From what I know, both companies have done good and bad things overall this generation.

Microsoft put out a completely unreliable POS for hardware, but OTOH, they had much better dev tools at launch than Sony did. They also got upscaling and antialiasing right.

Sony made a much more reliable system, with a much better storage medium, but their dev tools at launch were not all that great, and they screwed up by not putting in a devoted upscaling and antialiasing chip. They also screwed up more recently by letting the 80GB PS3 go out of circulation (I know people who want to buy PS3s but can't buy one with backwards compatibility.

Lastly, Sony may have assumed that they would get all the exclusives this time around because they were going to win hands down in Japan. Which they have done, excepting the Wii, which doesn't really figure into this argument.

Brucie B @ May 30th 2008 3:15PM

Sure Kaz, Sure

CALIX @ May 30th 2008 3:53PM

Ysleiro @ May 30th 2008 4:38PM

wtf

ross.brownfield @ May 30th 2008 6:00PM

If M$ wants to do it for 90% of their exclusives, then Sony might as well play ball. It is a business after all.

shay @ May 30th 2008 6:16PM

final fantasy xiii and versusxiii and keep mgs4 exclusive that is all they need to worry about third party wise and they should be paying to keep them.maybe they should buy some more devlopers though to help them with jrpgs and stuff just two more good devlopers and they good

DePalo @ Jun 2nd 2008 1:41PM

Listen in the end Sony is a great company, plus there not going anywhere. The system is solid and great. It's older consoles did great and so is this one. Dont forget we are still a long time from the end of PS3 making games. They are more focus on making new exclusives and doing new things. DRAKES FORTUNE WAS GREAT!

Overgauss @ May 31st 2008 3:06AM

Clearly the 80 gig "going out of circulation" as some moan, was planned.

Watch as the plan masterfully unfolds, illuminating yet another "of course!" gambit only recognised after the fact. Hint (MGS4)

adolson @ May 31st 2008 3:38AM

Third party publishers who were smart would have heard Sony announce they weren't paying for exclusives, and then ran to Microsoft offering to forget about the PS3 for whatever MS was willing to pay... That's what I'd have done. Sony need to think before they speak from now on, or they're going to talk themselves into oblivion.