Peter Dille on FFXIII Exclusivity (Translated)

Sony’s Senior Marketing VP, Peter Dille, recently commented on the PS3′s loss of its Final Fantasy XIII exclusive to Microsoft during an interview with MTV Multiplayer.

I will break his response down into segments for those reading at home, offering a translation after each. Why you ask? Because I care, and I don’t want you straining yourself trying to make sense of it all. Here goes.

“Consumers responded to “GTA” on the PS3 just as they did on the 360. And it becomes a bit of a jump ball. But it didn’t rise the tide for them.”

We are playing basketball with Microsoft in the middle of an ocean … or at the very least, a giant wave pool.

“And I think if you fast forward to when “Final Fantasy XIII” comes out I think you’re going to have millions of people who grew up playing “Final Fantasy” on the PlayStation playing it on a PlayStation 3.”

We believe that gamers are loyal creatures of habit, forever drawn to the unique feeling of the Ninten….errr, PlayStation controller.

“They spent a lot of money, I’m sure, to get “Final Fantasy” onto the 360 but at the end of the day it’s on our platform as well.”

You spent lots of money for yours, but we have it too!!

“Which is why we focus on, Let’s look at what happens when you have Metal Gear Solid on your platform … when the NPD numbers come out … I think you’ll see the value of what a real exclusive title does and how it raised the bar for PS3 versus 360.”

Allow me to subtly redirect your attention to a game that is still exclusive to the PS3 and pretend I’m not upset.

– end translation –

Crazy corporate mumbo jumbo at its finest! The reality of the situation is that Sony showcased a very strong lineup of first party titles and exclusives at E3. So unless Microsoft is willing to continuously open their checkbook, it appears that PS3 fanboys will have plenty of ammunition to fire in the direction of naysayers.

Source: MTV Multiplayer (via Kotaku)

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  • Krispy Demon

    I’m not trying to start a flame war here, but why is it that whenever a title that at some point was thought to be exclusive to Sony goes multiplatform or jumps ship completely, it’s because of Microsoft’s huge pocketbook? I could be wrong here, but I think Sony has plenty of money of their own. Nobody cried “DOLLA DOLLA BILL, YALL!” when Haze was cut from the 360 line up and became a PS3 exclusive. Sony doesn’t pay publishers/developers for exclusives? Sony gets their exclusives because their a good happy company that gives out hugs and free orange drink to all their supporters, while Microsoft burns down villages and holds families hostage to get what they want?

    Besides that, it’s not like Final Fantasy has always been a Sony exclusive title. There are plenty of FF games on Nintendo systems all over the place, and if anyone out there happens to be over fifteen years old, you may recall that Final Fantasy started on Nintendo’s systems, and was pretty much a Nintendo exclusive for about ten years. Square “jumped ship” when the N64 went cartridge based and the PSOne jumped to CDs. To me, Square is perfectly happy putting their games on whatever system they feel can do the game justice technically and financially. This time it happens to be Microsoft AND Sony’s systems are up to the requirements a Final Fantasy game… requires. Hell, Final Fantasy XI is on pretty much every system out there already and there are FF games on every single hand-held ever conceived, so it’s not like a multiplatform Final Fantasy should really shock anyone.

    Not that I care, really, Final Fantasy has been getting stupider and stupider ever since it went to 3D with Final Fantasy 7. I miss the good ol’ days when a good game could come from some greasy nerd in his basement with nothing but a good idea and too much free time. Now it takes millions of dollars and huge teams of programmers and artists (of whom some may not even be nerds… the HORROR!) to make a piece of crap movie tie in, let alone a triple-a blockbuster and I think that dilutes the creative process a little, but I digress.

  • Patrick Steen

    Because Microsoft is near the richest company in the world, and Sony is not…especially their games division?

  • Dan Landis

    Based on what? Microsoft has a higher market cap when you’re talking about stock, but Sony’s assets and equity are actually higher than Microsoft’s. If you want to talk about value based on stocks, even Nintendo is worth more than Sony.

  • Krispy Demon

    So, what, Sony is the little independent company and Microsoft is the huge evil corporation looking to come in and turn their ski resort into condos? Seems to me that IF MS is only getting exclusives because of back room cash deals, maybe Sony should get on the ball and do the same. Frankly, I find it hard to believe that the market leader in console sales the last two generations doesn’t have the money to secure a few exclusives. To me, it just seems like typical Sony arrogance. Why should they PAY for exclusives, they’re fucking SONY. Maybe that worked when the PS was the dominating console, but regardless of how you feel about the consoles, you can’t deny that they certainly aren’t as dominating as they were in previous generations.

  • Patrick Steen

    Dan: Microsoft has a market cap of $260billion, in comparison to Sony who has a market cap of $40billion.

    Moreover, that the game’s division worked on an overall loss during the whole Xbox enterprise, and the company were able to continue their gaming venture, demonstrates that money is of little concern to them.

    Krisp: We already have evidence of a GTA pay-out around $50million, and Sony can’t compete with that when all their money is invested in 1st party and 2nd party games. There’s more than a monetary offer of course, but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t such an offer.

    Microsoft has made it very clear that they have a list of games they want to have, and they will do anything they can to tick them off.

  • Dan Landis

    Yes, Patrick, I said Microsoft had a higher market cap than Sony, so why are you telling me something that I told you? Sony has about DOUBLE the assets of Microsoft, and Sony’s yearly revenue is about $30 billion higher than Microsoft’s.

    Focusing on the market cap to back up your “Microsoft has deep pockets and Sony doesn’t” idea (and ignoring the rest of the numbers) just leads me to believe you don’t understand what market cap is. The numbers are really only related to the stock market value, which is not necessarily indicative of the amount of money the company itself is capable of throwing around. If Ripten gets valued at $10 million, that doesn’t mean that we all of a sudden have millions of dollars to go buy shit.

    Furthermore, Sony’s game division has operated at a loss, but THEY aren’t just throwing in the towel. So, based on your logic, that means money is of little concern to Sony as well.

  • Krispy Demon

    Hold on, it’s public knowledge that Microsoft paid for GTA’s “exclusive” content, so why would they hide any other deals to secure third party titles? Second of all, that was specifically for the DLC in the future and, as far as it’s stated on paper and the like, has nothing to do with GTA actually coming to the 360 or not. Thirdly, even if Microsoft is securing titles by “cheating” and spending money to woo the publisher/developer, I don’t how this is a bad thing; at least for 360 gamers. Maybe Sony should start ponying up some cash if they expect to compete. On a similar note, maybe Sony shouldn’t spend so much time and money on first party titles if it’s going to hurt their third party support. They can have all the great first party titles they want, but without third party support all you have is an expensive but powerful GameCube.

    Frankly, as an owner of a 360, I’m happy to know that MS is giving their customers more options than just what their first party studios can churn out. I mean, don’t you want the company you’re supporting by buying a PS3 putting forth some effort to give you the games you want to play, or at least give you more options? Unless Sony becomes like EA and just flat out takes over the developers of good games, there is only so much that first party developers can do before quality begins to suffer.

    I guess it just bottles my mind how Microsoft is somehow pictured as this evil mega-corporation yet Sony is honorable and justified in all it’s dealings. I don’t see how they can have this image when it’s the same company that has touted backwards compatibility at the system’s launch then quick nixed it when sales figures weren’t in their favor. The same company that said that the tilt axis function was not possible with the rumble feature of controllers because of sensitivity, and yet now we have that. The same company that has been caught on more than one occasion using another game as images for their own game. The same company that stated people would buy their system no matter what because it was a muthafuckin PLAYSTION, bitch! The list goes on and on of things that they’ve said or did that was just a slap in the face of gamers.

    I’m not saying Microsoft are the good guys, I’m just saying they hide it better. Neither company gives too shits about their customers outside of their statistical value in outmaneuvering their competition or increasing the value of their stock. Frankly, the fact that MS is willing to throw down cold hard cash while Sony is not just says one more thing about what they’re willing, or not willing, to do to keep people buying their shit… and to get people to buy their shit they have to make customers happy.

    I mean, really, Sony doesn’t have fifty million to spend to get some exclusive DLC? They have it, they’re just not willing to spend it. Hell, maybe they are spending it, but on shit games no one cares about, like Haze. Either way, it seems to me that MS is just better at running a business than Sony, and I don’t see how you can fault Microsoft for that.