LittleBigPlanet 2 [review] kicks off Sony’s PS3 exclusive push for 2011 in a matter of days now, and it’s going to be swiftly followed by the wonderful Killzone 3 [hands-on]. These two games alone will keep many gamers busy for a good few months – the former especially.
But that’s not all that’s lined up for the PlayStation 3 this year – look out for Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, inFamous 2, The Last Guardian, Motorstorm: Apocalypse and Resistance 3 as big hitters, with the likes of MLB 11, Disgaea 4, PlayStation Move Heroes, SOCOM 4, Sorcery, Twisted Metal and a new Yakuza bringing up the rear.
It’s an impressive line-up, arguably, in fact, the strongest set of games that Sony and their third parties have pushed out this generation – something presumably spurred on by competition from the currently on a roll Xbox 360. The problem on that count, though, is that Microsoft don’t really seem to like talking about anything lined up themselves this year apart from (the admittedly massive) Gears of War 3, Forza 4 and a few other titles that run the gamut between potentially mind-blowing and ‘still codenamed’. We want to know what’s coming.
Sure, there’s the rather vague Panzer Dragoon-esque title, a new Steel Batallion, a Kinect survival horror from SEGA and the Crytek developed Codename Kingdoms, but what we want are the likes of Halo, guys, the stuff we find familiar and can get excited about. Halo sells consoles, it ignites gamers and – yes – we’ll happily settle for a HD remake of Combat Evolved this year if you’re taking a year out.
Exclusives are big business, the whole concept of having games that only play on your console (we’re, for the sake of this blog, ignoring PC and Windows phone releases) goes towards how one console manufacturer sets themselves apart from the others; and on that aspect alone it seems Sony have got this year all sewn up, at least going off what we know from the two houses.
For the first time, too, some might say – the PS3’s had a rather uneven release schedule ever since it was released with delays and misfires peppering what has actually at times been an underwhelming few years – but for the next twelve months we’re struggling to find what Microsoft are up to.
Maybe it’s the new emphasis on Kinect that’s absorbing all their energy. Certainly, the brand new motion control device has meant that the 360 has seen far more TV-time than anything else this Christmas – the games are fresh, massively fun with mates and require no grasp of traditional games to enjoy: put your Granny in front of Kinect and fire up Bowling and she’ll be off – the line-up has actually resulted in a solid set of highly playable games that are far weightier than we first thought. Dance Central is, by all accounts, bloody fantastic.
But are Gears of War 3, Forza 4 and some unknown quantities going to be enough to convince Microsoft’s hardcore following that they’re still the company’s focus? Of course not – and we don’t think for a second that there’s only going to be the games mentioned (and don’t forget that there’s still loads of multi-format games coming out) – and Greenberg’s already talking about how 2011 will be big for Xbox 360 exclusives. But that’s the point of this article – with Sony having already announced a good deal of their 2011 exclusive offering (and they’re still not talking about Starhawk) we have to wonder why Microsoft are being so cagey with their games.
Are they holding off for a massive bout of list-wars E3, or is there something else set for Los Angeles that’ll blow us all away…? Microsoft, we’re all ears.
solidsteven
It’s seems MS have messed up big time. They focuesed too much on getting Excluisve content and Kinect. If they do try to go with the Nintendo crowd, then that would be one of the worst descions they made. This year is a good year to be a PS3 owner. My wallet is going to be very thin this year.
Juelz345
I don’t think they’ve messed up. Kinect has been hugely successful and Gears is going to be huge as well. And there are still lots of 3rd party games coming out that generally sell better on 360. Plus, who’s to say that Gears and Forza will be the only exclusives? I’m sure there will be a few more announced for Q4.
but you’re right, it’s a great year to be PS3 owner, Uncharted 3 can’t come soon enough.
doa766
how can they release exclusives if they have no studios?
this is what happens when you piss away millions in timed exclusive DLC for GTA4 that you could’ve used to create at least one first party studio to produce a exclusives AAA games
Deathbrin
Why not though? Gears of War 3 and Forza 4 are massively big titles, and with the absense of competition they would get huge sales – i would think that’s basically enough for a 360 fan?
kivi95
But does game are for after autumn.They need some games the rest of the year too.
nichotshoter
Sony is ending 2011 with a bang. With the playstation 4 announcement at e3 2011 and releasing Q1 2012 at a price of £700.
Wing-Sabre
hmm sarcasm ? , i doubt sony would give people a reason to hold off buying their products due to the “next” console being on the horizon much more likely for the next gen wii to be announced first.
nichotshoter
I was actually joking. But to tell the truth don’t really see the ps4 being released anytime soon seeing as the ps3 is still high in price and it’s just started to hit it’s stride.
kivi95
I think sony has learned now about the price(hopefully).
xdarkmagician
The only reason people thought the launch PS3 was over-priced was because they didn’t understand the difference between Blu-ray vs DVD or they thought HD-DVD would win. If there was only 1 HD format available at the time a lot less people would have complained about the price and bought a PS3 as it was the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market, but not the cheapest HD quality video player. Everybody else that wanted a Blu-ray player and understood exactly what they were getting felt they got a good deal.
a inferior race
I bought a PS3 at launch for £425 and I honestly think it was overpriced. It’s all well and good, saying it can do this and it can do that, but for a games console it was very expensive.
MaD dOctoR 79
@ a inferior race
yeah but that’s just it, it’s not just a games console, it is a Blu Ray player that will always be updated with new firmware (there are a lot of BR players that can’t be updated, it now supports 3D without you needing to buy a new system, (again early BR players can’t be updated) plus as a launch machine you will have gotten a lot more on-board tech than the newer models backwards compatibility, card readers, 4 usb ports, plus you are always able to upgrade you HDD with any other brand you like and not waste loads of money paying for the name (ahem Microsoft) Sony products are almost always reasonably priced for what you are getting and what you will be able to get from it.
doa766
real exclusive/core games for 2011
(games that at some point were announced for 2011 even if they might not make it this year)
PS3:
LittleBigPlanet2
Killzone 3
Virtua Tennis 4
Socom 4
Sorcery
Motorstorm 3
MLB The Show 11
Infamous 2
Yakuza 4
PS Move Heroes
White Knight Chronicles 2
Ratcher and Clank all for one
Ni No Kuni
Resistance 3
The Last Guardian
Twisted Metal
Uncharted 3
360:
Gears of War 3
Forza 4
Deathbrin
Shows how narrow a view of the other platform we get from our side? :)
OneShotWook
Hm not sure how Pc releases can be so casually put aside when talking about 360 exclusives,phones i get but if the Pc was countered in you’d be left with only Alan Wake as an anywhere near interesting exclusive in last years 360 line up.
Blast-Shard
One of the only Xbox exclusive’s i’m jealous about is the Fallout DLC, and i’ve heard that that’s not even very good.
Long live, Playstation!
hazelam
the ps3 will get that sooner or later.
hennerzcfc
apart from halo and geras of war they have nothing that could commpite with the ps3 excluives. forza or gt in know which i would rather have.
xdarkmagician
Sure Sony has alot of exclusives this year, but they’re mostly all sequels to older IP’s Sony has owned for a while now. It would be interesting to find the contrast between IP’s owned by a console and the number of those IP’s that have titles in development for their specific consoles between the two systems. Sony has to own more IP’s than MS, and therefore have more exclusives to produce. I can only think of a few xbox exclusives that have launched on both xboxes, Halo & Fable. Unfortunately a lot of the 360s exclusives have not sold well enough to get a sequel… or 2, but when the next gen goes live, they’ll have a few more really good exclusives under their belt, but then again so will Sony.
kivi95
Sorcery,DC Universe Online,Heroes on the Move,Agent,Hyperdimension Neptunia,The Agency,Cathrine,The last Guardian and their will for sure be atleast 1 game at E3.
xdarkmagician
The Last guardian is basically a sequel to ICO and SotC, Agent is an old exclusive contract from the PS2 days of GTA. Point is ALOT of Sony’s exclusives come from deep seeded roots in the industry, most of wich already have a dedicated following that ensures partial success. They’re able to produce more because they have more options available. When you compare the number of Sony sequels against new Sony exclusives the sequels dominate. It’s the other way around for the 360. A fact that hurts MS exclusives, as most sequels sell as many or more than the original.
poorwretch
‘old exclusive’ is not a dirty word Blackadder, ‘Cathrinne’ on the other hand is positively disgusting word, its also multiplatform ; )
a inferior race
The only other two major titles I can think of is PGR and Forza.
MaD dOctoR 79
erm…Gears of war 3 (THREE) and Forza 4 (FOUR) the 360 exclusives are all sequels (or should that be both ;))
The Last Guardian is made by the same people who made Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus but has nothing to do with either (as far as I know) but they will probably have a few nods to both games in there somewhere.
Kovacs
If you’re interested. There were 24 PS3 exclusives in our Top 100 list. Of those 24 the following are not sequels per se. You could argue about the likes of ICO, No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise and Twisted Metal being remakes, Starhawk being a “spiritual successor” to Warhawk and FF Versus XIII being, well, a Final Fantasy game (where each one is not a follow-on from the previous games) but, in general, there’s definitely some new IP coming on Sony’s consoles this year. And that’s just the ones in the Top 100, of course.
Journey
The Last Guardian
ICO/SOTC HD Collection
Starhawk
Sorcery
No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise
Twisted Metal
PlayStation Move Heroes
Ratchet & Clank: All for One
Ni No Kuni (Another World)
Agent
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Alive and Undead
Gaztee
MS must be doing something right!! http://www.techwatch.co.uk/2011/01/06/uk-xbox-sales-sneak-ahead-of-ps3-in-2010/