Gears of War is one of the biggest franchises on the Xbox 360, but Wedbush Morgan Michael Pachter doesn't think Epic Games is satisfied with that. During an episode of GameTrailers' Bonus Round [thanks CVG], he said that Epic is likely eager to do more multi-platform development.
"I think that Microsoft has a contract to make sure that they get [Gears of War 3], but I think Epic regrets signing the contract," mused Pachter. "You're up to 11 million PS3s in the US and probably a similar number in Europe. You've got a 20 million addressable market with a game like Gears of War...that thing would easily sell three or four million on the PS3. That's a lot of profit."
"The only games that I think will be exclusive after this current run of contracts expires is first-party titles," he said.
The PS3 is much better established at this point and games are almost too expensive not to put out on as many platforms as possible. While making Gears of War an Xbox 360 exclusive (where it is also published by Microsoft) made a lot of sense at the time, we'd have to think Epic would bring the series to PS3 now if it could. Rockstar turned out less than stellar results with its Xbox 360 exclusive Grand Theft Auto IV DLC, so it'll be very interesting to see how the studio's PS3 exclusive Agent fares.
Update: Mark Rein, VP at Epic Games, has countered Pachter in the comments section on VG247. "Michael is wrong. We have a great relationship with Microsoft and we have no regrets," Rein stated. It's no surprise that Rein would publicly say he's happy with the deal. But internally, Epic might talk about the sales that could have been for Gears of War had it not been limited to Xbox 360 and PC. Perhaps "regret" is too strong a word, though.
3 Comments
January 22, 2010
I have a feeling that the Wii will still be getting exclusive shovelware for the duration of this console generation.
January 23, 2010
Haha, I agree with you on that THE 1 2 P.
January 25, 2010
Anubis II still a Wii exclusive!