Tony Hawk: Ride is 360 exclusive in UK Comments by Games Industry.biz

Paying for exclusivity = Cheap, laughable, pathetic.

There are other "lower profile" exclusivity deals that never gets press. Like Skate was never sold for the 360 in Portugal, I asked at Game - after looking everywhere - and they said "Skate is not going to be distributed in Portugal for the 360". And in fact, it never did.

"Paying for exclusivity = Cheap, laughable, pathetic."

Actually, it might be very expensive. ;)

Unfortunately the deals themselves always include clauses that prevent parties from releasing what has been paid... Only in the case of big deals like GTA IV's DLC they make the news as that was a deal so significant it had to be reported on in the financial statements.

I own an 360 - and don't have a lot of interest in this game but this strikes me as deliberately cuntish behaviour from the parties concerned.

The money paid obviously exceeds the profits Activision were expecting to make on the game (not a sign of confidence in the game) - but mostly it does little seem a little vindictive on MS part. Let your console sell itself - don't try and grief people who had the nerve to buy a different one.

I wonder how retailers feel about this ? I imagine the high street sellers aren't going to make a big effort to push this brand if their revenue is going to be limited ...

Ghostbusters was going to be delayed on all platforms in Europe by *Atari*. Sony just stepped in and made sure the PS versions weren't delayed.

So, Ghostbuster is a "different" thing? How come? What did Sony do to "step in"? What does "step in" means ?

While we're on daft exclusivity (coincidenatally in the same ballpark) - someone get Stoked a European publisher! :( (I want to play some snowboarding, and it's not region free, either)

Eurogamer. Make sure you do one thing the next time you interview the relevant people at MS.

ASK THEM HOW THEY JUSTIFY DOING THIS? GRILL THEM ON IT!

I'm all for permanent exclusivity on a system as a way of improving a game to your systems specs or convincing people to buy your console. Or if a developer makes the decision at the start based on costs.

But timed and region exclusives are the single most pathetic and ridiculous thing I have seen in 30 years of gaming. I hope the people concerned are reading this.

Do they not realise how pointless it is?

@miiiguel
Atari are in financial trouble and restructuring - they couldn't afford to launch a high profile title like Ghostbusters worldwide. So they decided to delay it by 6 months outside the US. Sony had a bit more stuff planned for the 25th anniversary of Ghostbusters - like a BR release and merchandise, so they stepped in and said they will publish the game as scheduled in Europe - but obviously they are only going to do the versions for their own consoles.

Some supporting links ...
Atari to be US only
Summary on a XBox website

The only reason I like exclusives is because I have both consoles. The fact that this game will undoubtedly be shit doesn't make a lot of difference. Not exactly holding out for ghostbusters to be any good either...

this is getting silly now :-/

@ Damn: I'm sorry but I'm not sure if I buy that. Not to say that you or the guy that post that "news" are liers but I can't really believe that Sony suits have halos on their heads. I don't think this is a matter of good guys and bad guys.

And, I wanted to play Ghostbusters. No, but not 399 Eur-that-bad.

We need watchdog style interviews where they don't let anyone speak until the PR person just breaks down in tears and hands over their wallet. Love it.

"Do they not realise how pointless it is?"

Not just pointless but also damaging to gaming as a whole. We hardcore gamers know about this stuff beforehand (and are still often baffled) but the masses don't. It's a bit how the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray made both of them worse off compared to DVD.

"I'm all for permanent exclusivity on a system as a way of improving a game to your systems specs or convincing people to buy your console. Or if a developer makes the decision at the start based on costs."

+1

@Miiiguel
It's a lot more believable than the alternatives. Sony have avoided bought in exclusives this gen. If it was a regular bought exclusive then why are Sony having to publish it? The timing of Atari's financial woes and switch to a US only company are just coincidence?

Think it's something more sinister if you want but this explanation makes a hell of a lot more sense given what we know as fact.

I love how it's the PS3 owners that actually care about this.

360 owners dont give a shit.

Meh - who cares? The Tony Hawks series has lost any impact it once had. The series has been milked to death.

@mcmonkeyplc : I'm a PS3 owner (and 360+Wii owner) and don't give a shit :)

@ Damn: I guess you can be right, though, if you ever come to Portgual you'd probably understand me a bit better - you simply can't find many games for the 360 - well, tbh, the only ones one knows he can find are the ones which are published by MS. And yes, I do find it "fishy".

Not to mention Portuguese press...

@DrDamn "Sony have avoided bought in exclusives this gen."

What about UT3, Mirror's Edge dlc or the new Batman Joker character?

It's a pretty bizarre 'exclusive' to have for only one country. Especially since the new peripheral games like this one and DJ Hero aren't going to sell to the casual audience or the hardcore I don't think. It either has to be a guitar or on the Wii.

The game was revealed late last week for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii, but Microsoft has seemingly grabbed the highly-anticipated title for itself in the region.

"Further to Monday's announcement regarding Tony Hawk: RIDE, Activision UK is pleased to announce that this title will be launched later this year in the UK, as an Xbox 360 platform exclusive," said the company.

They're "pleased to announce" this? I love how they always seem so happy when they do this sort of thing, "we're pleased to announce that we've basically fucked over a significant portion of our user base because one of the console manufacturers gave us a big wad of cash. Fuck the Wii and PS3 owners! MS paid us more than they would have."

Buying exclusivity, thus removing a game or DLC from another platform (for however long) is not a good thing it should not be celebrated as such. They always present this as a "win" for their platform, "it was gonna come out on PS3/360 (delete as applicable) but now it's only on our console, yay!" Why is that a good thing?

If they can be arsed then PS3 and Wii owners will be able to buy it from France or somewhere else on mainland Europe (I'm not sure how they slice up the languages on PS3 but Nintendo's European games tend to have the English, French, German, Italian and Spanish languages available in the same version) so it's at most an inconvenience for owners of those consoles that want the game.

Yeah as an owner of both, I dont give a shit. :)

This is going to be pitched as the Christmas game for the 360 in the UK I guess. Perhaps it won't be totally rubbish then, they wouldn't bother with exclusivity if they hadn't seen it and decided it was worthwhile.

I'll hold out hope for end of year US/EU PS3 releases of Demon's Souls and Tales of Vesperia myself, that should dull the bitter, stinging pain a little.

"If they can be arsed then PS3 and Wii owners will be able to buy it from France or somewhere else on mainland Europe (I'm not sure how they slice up the languages on PS3 but Nintendo's European games tend to have the English, French, German, Italian and Spanish languages available in the same version) so it's at most an inconvenience for owners of those consoles that want the game."

Thats true only for the incredibly small percentage of owners that actually know about that kind of stuff. The majority of UK console owners will simply see the title as an exlusive, because that's how it will be advertised in the UK. Most do not know, or care, about region coding and importing.

I really can't see it being a big seller though as it's been battered by Skate for the past couple of years. Does seem a strange choice though.

Eurogamer. Make sure you do one thing the next time you interview the relevant people at MS.

ASK THEM HOW THEY JUSTIFY DOING THIS? GRILL THEM ON IT!

LOL. This will never happen.

Ah more stupid tactics, I couldn't care less about Hawks games and own both platforms anyway but this "that country/region gets it and not you" bull needs to stop, make an exclusive deal across you regions otherwise get lost.

/ is happy in his decision to give no more new money to the industry

Remeber when games companies used to spend money trying to make their product better? Now they spend that money on trying to make the competition worse instead.

It's tragic really, but that's big business for you.

are microsoft stupid. seeing as the ps3 can play games from any region... congrats you just blew a load of money for exclusivity on a shit looking game

It's been confirmed that it will not be 360 exclusive on other sites so don't need to worry anymore about it anymore

@jozz
sony do not pay for exclusives, doesnt mean they dont get them

Here we go. The fucking dick heads have arrived.

You know, the ones that think Sony fart perfume and shit rose petals.

Most Europeans are too fat and would break the board anyways.

Has anyone other than me thought of the bigger picture here?

Getting exclusivity on an this game, will strengthen the relationship between Microsoft and Activision. Regardless of how good / bad the game is..(not that you can judge this yet anyway, unless you've played it? have you?)

Anyway, Maybe Micro have one eye on the future. Prove to Acti that they can sell well on one console, and perhaps they have a change of getting an exclusivity deal on COD, timed or other wise.

Sometimes you have to buy the crap to get on the good side of the crapper, for future gold.

Just a thought.

Edit, below Coin-Op and his very biased views again, it's about time i clicked your ignore button....

Importing for my PS3, not getting reeled in to buy an 360 because of exclusivity.

No one was going to buy it anyway...

If microsoft made reliable consoles to play it on, i might actually be envious, but untill then they can go and fuck off

New press release says it isn't exclusive to 360 and will be appearing on ps3 (no mention if they enjoy the same release date though). Untwist those panties ;)

So what are all the PS3 owning assholes going to troll about now?

Go back to your Trico video circlewank. Video is the only decent part of PS3 exclusive 'games' anyway.

Why is Farticus such a massive cunt?