Respawn Entertainment, the studio built from high profile Activision employees previously responsible for Call of Duty, looks likely to be working on something called Titan, which – according to a rumour published this evening on Kotaku – won’t see the light of day on PlayStation 4.
The game is apparently a “multiplayer-centric online shooter”, as you might expect given the studio’s previous experience, and pits soldiers against massive giant exoskeletons, known as – yup, Titans.
It’s all clicking together.
Kotaku’s collaborated story points to Titan being exclusive to Xbox platforms. It’s likely there’ll be a current-gen version alongside a next-gen version, but it’ll only be on Microsoft consoles.
Activision have normally been close bedfellows with the Xbox brand, with timed exclusives on the Call of Duty series pretty much a given of late. This – if true – could have interesting implications.
Vince Zampella and Jason West left Infinity Ward in 2010, forming Respawn. Titan, if that is indeed the name of the game, will be the studio’s first output and would represent a fairly major deal for Microsoft if the exclusivity issue comes to fruition.
Microsoft are revealing their next gen console in May.
FluBBa
Sounds very unlikely, unless the EA Partners meltdown means that MS stepped up and put some money in Respawn…
Tuffcub
If this does happen at all, it will be a timed exclusive but it will be at the expense of any good will EA had made from PlayStation fans. They screwed Dead Space, SimCity was bollocksed, Battlefield has been been bugged from day one.. EA are on thin ice.
KeRaSh
Online shooter? They can keep those. Not interested anywas.
gazzagb
I seriously doubt it will happen, at first the number of next-gen consoles will be so small that limiting it to just 1 part would be commercial suicide.
Alex C
disagree completely. now’s exactly the time to do it – also, do you not think MS would pay for the exclusivity?
gazzagb
Sorry, I should’ve made it clearer – it would be commercial suicide for EA, who they’ve paired up with already. I have no doubt MS would love a deal like that, but I can’t see EA potentially cutting 50% of their audience.
Alex C
But MS would pay a chunk of cash that would equate to estimated sales gained from a PS4 version. EA won’t lose a penny.
gazzagb
Jeez, that amount could be huge, especially factoring in not just the game, but online passes, DLC etc. I still can’t really see it happening though, but I guess time will tell!
cc_star
It could be commercial suicide to develop a new IP with a probably huge budget & not have a way of paying for it through those relatively small install bases.
Microsoft gets console sales, Respawn get their big project paid for – Neither of those parties lose.
The Von Braun
I’d honestly question just how much ‘value’ an exclusive like this has, in todays marketplace.
Sony had it’s own crack at exclusive online FPS games this gen, with things like Resistance 2 and MAG pushing things like ever increasing numbers of players for a console shooter online, then you had the Killzone series, more online multiplayer stuff like Starhawk, Warhawk, Dust 514 is still rumbling on, etc etc.
Did any of these draw my PS3 owning friends away from COD/BF/MW? nope.On 360 my friends choose an online game and stuck with it, again, just the usual warfare crowd or Gears Of War or Halo, good few ventured into L4D but that was about as far as they went.
So Ms would really have it’s work cut out to promote something like these to get people to move out of established comfort zones, plus i’m sure they’d been keen to be pushing gamers towards new installments of Gears and Halo and going by their own figures, if more 360 owners are using the online part of the 360 for things other than gaming…..i wonder just who they are expecting to flock to this, in the numbers it’ll need to survive if it remains on a single platform.
Lagahan
I’ll be disappointed if this is true. Though maybe its some term handed down from EA partners execs. Was odd seeing Jason West leaving Respawn, could be related to EA bureaucratic crap? they are being ruthless financially recently..
a inferior race
I thought third party exclusives were mostly abandoned following the GTA3 and VC becoming available on Xbox