Boris Schneider-Johne, product manager for Xbox
360 at Microsoft Germany, explained the company’s
stance on the importance of exclusive titles.
“That is difficult to assess. In the past, in the
eighties and nineties, that was a major issue. I
remember the big ‘Mario vs. Sonic’ debates. What
we see today is that the influence of exclusive
titles on the sales curves becomes ever smaller,”
Schneider-Johne told Golem.de in an interview.
“In addition, we are in a situation that there is
a head-to-head race on several consoles and that
nobody is super clear in leadership - especially
in matters of the PlayStation 3 against Xbox 360.”
“Given the production costs of the games, it is
hardly possible for developers to commit itself
exclusively to someone. Now Sony makes its own
games for the console, we make our own games for
the console. The titles are exclusive, as they
are also attempts turnout the best of the
console, but someone like Electronic Arts or
Activision can have a business model of rarely
developing for a console exclusively. Therefore,
the exclusive title is a little less important.”
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