It’s hard to put exclusivity disputes to rest. What’s worrying is that there are disputes – anger and seriousness over the possibility of losing a game to the “competition.” There’s been buzz around Metal Gear Solid 4, Bioshock, and most certainly HAZE.

Free Radical’s script writer, Rob Yescombe, attempts to put the bickering to rest in this interview we held at Sony’s Playstation 3 Rooms.

What makes HAZE (and to a lesser extent Bioshock) more complicated than MGS4 and Final Fantasy XIII, is that it was originally announced for three platforms. Moreover, the game’s producer turned a presumed Playstation 3 exclusive, Assassin’s Creed, into a multiplatform game. Ubisoft don’t appear to be the exclusive type.

This begs the question, why did Free Radical choose Ubisoft as their producer this time around rather than Sony, or the previous Codemasters? Rob Yescombe had this to say of their decision:

Well their pedigree for shooters is pretty good. I mean, they’ve got a good gambit of things under their belt. And part of the pleasure of being an independent studio is you don’t have to work with the same guy every time.

It’s not that we’ve had problems with any other publishers, it’s just that in order for us to remain…er…vigilant in the market that we occupy, it’s important to know what it’s like working with various people. Ubisoft have been bloody great, I mean they’ve put us here [Playstation 3 Rooms, London.] This is nice.

Still, as a result of Ubisoft’s indecisiveness over console exclusives, there has been a continuous cycle of reports saying Haze is no longer exclusive, to it being a timed exclusive, and then to exclusive again. So what is the truth of the matter? I asked Rob whether HAZE really is Playstation 3 exclusive?

Why does everybody keep asking that? It’s a Playstation 3 exclusive. Buy a Playstation 3 and play it. I want it to be the reason people buy a Playstation 3.

That’s all well and good, but will this really put the rumours to rest? Couldn’t it just come out on another platform further down the line?

We’re a Playstation 3 exclusive. If by some magical wave of the wand that happens, I won’t be complaining. But we’re a Playstation 3 exclusive.

Rob has certainly put things into perspective. Like any good business decision, I presume it’ll all depend on the game’s sales on the Playstation 3. Still, as obvious as this sounds, people will still be talking about whether HAZE really is Playstation 3 exclusive. In reply to the sentiment that everyone is talking about HAZE’s exclusivity, Rob muses:

I find it so confusing that some people are so offended at the idea that it will be format exclusive. But it’s like people get angry about it. What are you angry about?

Indeed, what are people angry about? I expect most are annoyed by the conflicting reports from both news sites and Ubisoft/Free Radical themselves. It would help to know who’s decided on the gam’es exclusivity. Perhaps it wasn’t Ubisoft’s decision, but Free Radical’s choice to concentrate on one platform?

No, it’s not our decision.. It’s a publisher decision. And it’s not like this bizarre practice of gamers kind of demonising publishers like they’re some evil guy. Ubisoft have helped us out a lot on this game, in terms of being very supportive to the decisions that we wanted to make and to approve it.

They allowed us to delay it. You know people are so furious “Oh god, I pre-ordered this game and it’s delayed.” The fact of the matter is, what we want for people to do is not just to have a knee jerk buy at Christmas. You know, we want people to feel like they spent $50 and it was worth that money. You know, that’s what that delay was about.

In addition to delaying the game, changing focus from three platforms to just the Playstation 3 must have helped the game’s quality also:

Originally it [development] was kind of open ended. The fact of the matter is our pedigree at Free Radicial, when we were doing Timesplitters, all of that started out on Sony hardware. And so those guys have a lot of experience working in that realm.

Starting on any new hardware has its quirks, and Playstation 3 is no different, but it meant that we were able to hit the ground running maybe a little bit faster than some of the other developers that found it a bit tricky.

Hopefully such focus would enable Free Radical to concentrate more on the Playstation 3’s quirks, such as the Cell Processor:

Well, I mean, it’s something that those guys, the technical guys, are very capable of doing.

Even then, Sony’s technical wizards have been relied upon by some developers, especially before the arrival of improved Playstation 3 tools. So have Free Radical had any support from Sony’s techies?

Well to be honest with you, we haven’t really needed that kind of tech support. I mean, they’re willing and able to provide it, but we just haven’t run into that problem.

Which is pleasing to hear, since this is one game where the framerate won’t falter. Expect a locked 30fps on release. We all hope that this little interview has put HAZE’s exclusivity into context and will potentially put the bickering to rest. Then again, we’ll only be able to guess at why Ubisoft made this decision.

For more information on Haze please follow this link, or have a gander of our gallery. Stand by for our incoming hands-on preview.

In an interview in Famitsu magazine, he says:

When you hit someone or inflict pain, faces get disfigured for example, and I want to make games that show that sort of thing.

If you don’t see the pain, you can’t understand what you’ve done, and you’ll pass through battles without taking responsibility for your actions. I don’t want to ignore that. I want players to think, even if it’s just a little, about what violence and war are.

It’s good to hear a heavyweight getting behind the industry for producing mature content, but it’s also clear to see that he means this with a caveat. Earlier in the interview he stated that he doesn’t think many games tackle violence head on.

He reinforces this point by adding: “I think there are fewer developers around today who think about making a good game.” Manhunt 2 and its ilk aren’t getting any love it seems.

As for Kojima’s vision; Metal Gear’s well established penchant for existential debate means we’re going to get a fair dose on the morals of war, but facial disfigurement? Is this some curious new IP brewing in his brain? We can’t wait.

More to the point, why is he being interviewed by Assassin’s Creed producer Jade Raymond?

Read the interview here.

A predictable outcome for Ubisoft; a company that doesn’t like to keep all its eggs in one basket, as was seen in Assassin’s Creed reaching both consoles – and soon to be PC.

Whether the console iterations of Far Cry 2 will be as solid and impressive as the PC version that we’ve always been expecting, we’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s the press release, which is regrettably in French. Nothing against the language, but it’ll be foreign to the majority of you.

Ubisoft annonce aujourd’hui que Far Cry® 2 est actuellement en développement sur Xbox 360® de Microsoft et PLAYSTATION®3 de Sony. Far Cry 2 est un jeu de tir à la première personne développé par le studio d’Ubisoft Montréal.

Plus qu’une performance visuelle et technologique, Far Cry 2 constitue pour le joueur une expérience de jeu inédite, basée sur un moteur de jeu conçu spécifiquement pour l’occasion. Les joueurs seront plongés dans un univers de jeu totalement ouvert, au sein de somptueux paysages africains, grâce à la haute définition et à la technologie next-gen.

La sortie de Far Cry 2 est prévue pour l’année fiscale 2008-2009.

In way of a translation: Far Cry 2 is being developed for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, which will be released in the fiscal year 2008-09. Or there abouts.

Let me preface this with the sentiment that I find this following retailer comment interesting, but not indicative of the whole of the United Kingdom gaming market. This is from one small independent retailer, and not from a main retailer such as HMV or Woolworths. I would still like to share my findings with you.

On my trip to a local town I thought I’d have a wee gander in the gaming store for a Playstation 3 game to treat myself for Christmas. Maybe a little bit of Assassin’s Creed or Ratchet and Clank, and to check whether they had my current favorite PS3 title, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

Wandering into the store I can hardly find any Playstation 3 titles at all. To my delight I do discover a corner plastered with Heavenly Sword posters and a small selection of titles. Firstly, most of the PS3 games appeared to be used and not new.

This isn’t to say that people are returning PS3 games more than other platforms, as there were also many used Xbox360 titles, but the amount of new PS3 games were few.

So I asked the shop owner whether these were all the PS3 games he had.

Yes, that’s all.

In asking why, I get the reply.

People only started buying the system 6 weeks ago, so we just don’t get the trade.

Really? But there are lots of great games out now and the system is more affordable. How about Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune?

Oh we get the new titles in and they sell out very quickly, but it’s high risk having Playstation 3 games in stock, as we aren’t guaranteed a sale. So we just let them go.

O.K. thank you. (Not).

What does this mean? Well firstly it means that he lost a sale, as I was very willing to fork out £50 for a game. Thus, he could just be a foolish store owner who isn’t pushing the Playstation 3 and its games enough, especially when he says the exclusive titles sell out straight away. Perhaps he just knows his buying public very intimately.

Is this even a sign of the whole UK market? Playstation 3 exclusives aren’t selling at a huge rate, but Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty 4 have done quite respectably – both of which weren’t in this store. Their Xbox360 counterparts were. Is this retailer just out of the loop?

The UK is one of the few European countries where Xbox360’s outsell the Playstation 3, so this store may well be a sign of the other gaming stores around the country. This retailer suggests that the PS3 only really kicked off 6 weeks ago after the price cut, hence stocking PS3 titles just isn’t worth it.

This is a shame, because it could turn into a vicious circle. Low PS3 sales mean small retailers don’t stock PS3 titles, meaning gamers don’t know what titles the PS3 has, meaning they don’t get to see great games like Uncharted, and thus the PS3 doesn’t seem like a worthwhile buy.

So is this retailer’s understanding of the market correct? Is it still high risk for small retailers to stock Playstation 3 titles in the United Kingdom? Isn’t the PS3 now selling well enough to justify trying to push the console and its games?