Yes I know what the title says, can we please get away from the filth now? Right, now that’s out of the way lets actually talk about the topic at hand, big titles. A while ago I was having a conversation with a friend about the different way which Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo handle their exclusive properties. All three have fairly impressive catalogues of large titles, from Halo to Uncharted to Mario and so on, the titles they can put out to almost guaranteed sales. I mean Halo: ODST was released to little fanfare, without being very good and still sold a ridiculous quantity of titles.
Their seems to be a fairly simple two way split between Nintendo and Sony, the Japanese fraternity, and Microsoft. Both Sony and Nintendo seem intent on keeping a tight control over their major IPs, having most of their significant titles developed in house. There are a few exceptions, such as Metroid: Other M, and Insomniac titles, but in general both companies keep development internal. If some third party development comes up with a killer title for their console they gladly welcome them into the fold, buying them up and converting them to a first party studio. We’ve seen this kind of action recently with Sony’s purchase of Media Molecule.
By contrast Microsoft go in the exact opposite direction. They own far fewer first party studios, less than ten and quite a few of those are almost entirely research based. Instead they set up publisher relationships with developers, providing support and funding on a title to title basis. It basically gives them the flexibility to review individual titles, and decide whether or not they wish to support them, whilst also allowing developers to remain flexible and develop whatever they want without having Microsoft’s vision enforced on them. It seems to be a lesson they learned from Bungie, who seemingly didn’t want to be kept on the Halo series for so long eventually forcing them to buy themselves back from their parent company.
The question really boils down to is either approach better than the other? Does either produce a dedicated crop of games that far surpass the other method. Some would say the approach of the Japanese giants shows trust and faith in a company, being confident that they’ll continue to do outstanding work in the future. Of course it also benefits the developers as it builds up a large network that can share programming tricks, something that’s well known inside Sony. By contrast others would point out, as I have, that Microsoft’s approach of taking on the publishing rights for games or ‘buying’ other exclusives from publishers such as Ubisoft allows greater flexibility for both Microsoft and the developers in the future, allowing both parties to work on whatever they want.
Which approach do you think outshines the other? Is there a ‘best’ way of developing the big titles, or are both approaches equally valid?