“We’re not talking about that now” is one of the most annoying – and frequent – answers games journalists will receive when interviewing publishers and developers about games. Everything is managed now, and it is very hard to get any sort of answer other than the one that has been carefully planned by a PR suit, so hats off to CVG’s Rob Crossley for at least trying to get Microsoft to answer questions about the Day One Parity clause.
For those who do not know, this is a clause written by Microsoft that states that any game appearing on Xbox Live must not appear on a rival platform (the PSN) before its debut on Xbox. Assault Android Cactus, a twin stick shooter, is one game that will not be available on Xbox due to parity clause.
“The simple answer is that our plans wouldn’t meet the launch day parity requirement of the ID@Xbox program,” co-creator Sanatana Mishra told Eurogamer. “We started development on our other console versions long before self-publishing was an option for Xbox One and the only way we could meet that requirement would be to delay the other versions of Cactus.”
So, back to Rob Crossley who asked Microsoft’s Chris Charla, manager of the ID@Xbox indie program, if there were any plans to drop the clause.
“I can’t comment on our publishing policies,” said Chris, “But I can say we’re taking feedback from developers, and we’re always taking feedback, and we want to make ID@Xbox as great a platform as it possibly can.”
Rob persisted and asked “Can you explain how the day-one parity clause benefits the games industry?”
“That’s almost like you’re asking the same question,” said Chris. “I really can’t talk about it. We encourage developers to reach out – I can’t talk to you about the policy, but I can talk to developers about it.”
Rob then asked why they topic could not be discussed and a PR person stepped in and said those magic words, “It’s not something that we’re talking about, we’re here to discuss the development of the ID@Xbox program.”
Microsoft say they are “listening” to developers so perhaps the clause may be removed in the future but for now it may continue to discourage indies from signing up to ID@Xbox. At the moment, it seems as though Microsoft are missing out on potential ports of great PSN exclusives.
boeboe
Not surprised he couldn’t answer this: “Can you explain how the day-one parity clause benefits the games industry?”
bunimomike
They want to be all special and exclusive. In essence, a decent a notion. However, when you see how it gimps everything else, it feels like they’re shooting themselves in the foot on this one. At the very least, unnecessarily restricting games from coming to the platform for their customer-base to enjoy. :-\
Jones81
ahh the wonderful world of microsoft PR, a world staffed by clueless monkeys, and run by mickey mouse (possibly)
Starman
Crossley must be pretty dim, the policy isn’t to benefit the games industry, its to benefit Xbox.
Andrewww
Of course, he knows that. Found it a great question to ask..! :o)
Pitcher-T
That’s the point, he wants to hear how Microsoft can defend it and the fact they couldn’t/wouldn’t gives us a bit of a clue.
Starman
Well I look forward to him grilling Sony over their exclusives sometime and how they benefit everyone. Oh let me guess, thats different.
colmshan1990
It is different.
He’s not arguing against exclusives, or even exclusivity windows.
He’s asking why a game can’t release on Xbox if it’s already released elsewhere- why don’t Microsoft want extra games for their players to play?
Scythegpd
Wow so now exclusively releasing a game that your company fully funded and developed is the same as enforcing a policy forcing a developer to release a game you contributed nothing to on your console first or barring them is the same thing?
You never cease to amaze me. “Balanced viewpoint” my arse.
pdannysan13
I did not know about this clause, it feels unacceptable to me. We can talk about it and complain but the only ones who can change this are developers.
They should give MS the message that they will not accept this, the best way of doing this being: NOT publishing on Xbox.
I do not want to be a Sony fanboy but can someone count with how many stuff did MS want to get away this year? If competition wouldn’t have existed….
boyinastairwell
I didn’t know about it either. I can’t help feeling that if Sony have managed to get the support of the indie developers that all of the reports suggest we might see another MS u-turn!
This also makes me glad the PS has people like Shahid Kamalon their side
Vallon
I think that clause is also why Nuclear Throne will be a timed exclusive on PlayStation. Lots of developers (especially the smaller ones) do not like it at all and you can understand why!
Microsoft dictating to developers will not end well for them, la revolution!!!!!
ghost5
Maybe Sony should have the same clause and change the store update day to Sunday.
That way we would be stuck in limbo and never get new games
TSBonyman
Granted they have their reasons but it still seems a bit pig-headed, denying their users access to some games basically out of spite.
I don’t know what Microsoft is afraid of. We’ve been waiting for a year or more for Minecraft on Playstation but does that mean it’s not going to sell like hotcakes? Like hell it’s not.
Andrewww
And what about the rumours about the ‘equal visual quality’ policy? Thought MS would not allow for cross platform titles to look/run better on other systems, if they wanted to be on XBox? I somehow find it quite surprising AC IV and COD are not downscaled on PS4. Must have given that one up..?
Lyts1985
What a daft policy – MS will do anything to try and screw Playstation over. Fair play to the devs who are saying “stuff you then MS” too, good to see them making a stand.