Microsoft Bought Tales of Vesperia's 360 Exclusivity

[Pingieking]

Not to mention that "Tales of" series is fairly niche outside Japan. Throw all these ingredients into a pot and you have some shrewd business making at Namco HQ.

This. Well played Namco. Well played.

Vesperia wasn't going to be a huge seller outside of Japan, so it was a smooth move to lose out on some potential customers in order to get solid cash from MS. Who knows, maybe they managed to get more out of MS for the exclusivity than they would have from PS3 version sales outside of Japan.

 

[9thRequiem]

This is one of the most profoundly stupid articles I've seen on here for a while.

Tales of Vesperia isn't exactly the first game to be exclusive to one console and exclusivity is for monetary reasons pretty much every time. Acting as though Microsoft is some mean jerk stealing lunch money on the playground because they're doing exactly what every console manufacturer does seems petty.

Edit: Exclusivity in only a single locale isn't new or out of the ordinary either.

Agreed.
Considering there are companies that exclusively port games between platforms, and the cost to port a game is going to be less than the amount you get from sales, why on earth wouldn't companies make their games multi-platform otherwise? Because they don't want money that much?

 

[Ashadow700]

But...uh... can we not all just import the game from Japan? The PS3 is regionfree, is it not? (or whatever the word is)

 

[Grayjack]

But...uh... can we not all just import the game from Japan? The PS3 is regionfree, is it not? (or whatever the word is)

Yes, but everything will be in Japanese, a language a lot of people don't know.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

This is one of the most profoundly stupid articles I've seen on here for a while.

Tales of Vesperia isn't exactly the first game to be exclusive to one console and exclusivity is for monetary reasons pretty much every time. Acting as though Microsoft is some mean jerk stealing lunch money on the playground because they're doing exactly what every console manufacturer does seems petty.

Edit: Exclusivity in only a single locale isn't new or out of the ordinary either.

Agreed.
Considering there are companies that exclusively port games between platforms, and the cost to port a game is going to be less than the amount you get from sales, why on earth wouldn't companies make their games multi-platform otherwise? Because they don't want money that much?

In this case I think the issue is that a version for the other platform already exists in Japan. Of course people are completely ignoring the additional cost of localizing that version (the translations and such are done, but there would still be a fair amount of work left).

People are also assuming that it's abnormal for things to end up exclusive after non-exclusive release somewhere else. It isn't.

 

[Arehexes]

cue all the Microsoft haters (who spell it "Micro$oft) who just needed their daily dose of hating.
i don't even see the point of this, honestly, there are MUCH better titles to snag up exclusive rights to that fit the "xbox" audience (my audience) better.

Well you don't make up the whole bloody market share for xbox since I and my friends enjoy the rpgs on the xbox. That's why i love the xbox because it's so diverse. Also it's a smart move to do since most people see the ps3 as the haven of JRPGs (or wished they did, they don't have Lost Odyssey so ha).

 

[Grayjack]

Oh Noooo now I'll never get to play this generic preteen filled JRPG.

Oh well

Guess I'll have to settle for inFamous 2 and an inevitable encounter with Uncharted 3

Good job on your research.

 

[Smooth Operator]

MS firing it's lazor directly at Sony there, the main market for these games is Japan and that is where Sony ruled supreme for a long time.

Now they are buying out the Japanese market to shake their foundation, sneaky evil genius right there.

 

[Arehexes]

Oh Noooo now I'll never get to play this generic preteen filled JRPG.

Oh well

Guess I'll have to settle for inFamous 2 and an inevitable encounter with Uncharted 3

I think only 2 of the heroes are preteens, but yeah keep job assuming you know a game just because it's genre. Hope you enjoy playing games with rugged white guys being the heroes and the dirty unwashed is the villians

 

[Ashadow700]

But...uh... can we not all just import the game from Japan? The PS3 is regionfree, is it not? (or whatever the word is)

Yes, but everything will be in Japanese, a language a lot of people don't know.

Oh, right. Did not think about that

 

[gphjr14]

Oh Noooo now I'll never get to play this generic preteen filled JRPG.

Oh well

Guess I'll have to settle for inFamous 2 and an inevitable encounter with Uncharted 3

I think only 2 of the heroes are preteens, but yeah keep job assuming you know a game just because it's genre. Hope you enjoy playing games with rugged white guys being the heroes and the dirty unwashed is the villians

Only goes to show how little most people care about this game. Its on the PS3 in Japan if you have a PS3 you should know the games are region free. Anyways back to not caring.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Appreciate the honesty, but I have to wonder how many people are going to rage about this now? Not sure I would have told the public about this. If there was ever a time for it, it would have been shortly after the game was released, and even then that probably wouldn't be a good idea.
He was smart enough to point out that the PS3 pays for exclusives too, which probably cooled a lot of anger very quickly with the simple thought of, "Oh, I guess that's true."

 

[Arehexes]

Oh Noooo now I'll never get to play this generic preteen filled JRPG.

Oh well

Guess I'll have to settle for inFamous 2 and an inevitable encounter with Uncharted 3

I think only 2 of the heroes are preteens, but yeah keep job assuming you know a game just because it's genre. Hope you enjoy playing games with rugged white guys being the heroes and the dirty unwashed is the villians

Only goes to show how little most people care about this game. Its on the PS3 in Japan if you have a PS3 you should know the games are region free. Anyways back to not caring.

I think you quoted the wrong guy I didn't mention the region thing, and I could care less I have it for my 360.

 

[Madmanonfire]

Cue fansubs of the Japanese PS3 version!
Seriously. That would be much obliged.

 

[hansari]

Microsoft is only hurting the gaming community as a whole and Namco Bandai by not allowing this game to be released as the development company wished/wishes, and it can only be described as disgracesful.

Agreed, but it takes two to tango.

They deserve as much blame as Microsoft for a shoddy game. I have no doubt they knew what they were getting into at the start of the deal. If they somehow miraculously didn't, they deserve more fanrage. Namco Bandai wasn't born yesterday.

 

[mjc0961]

Are you upset that you never got to play Tales of Vesperia on the PS3? Well, guess what, this is a case where it actually is all Microsoft's fault.

Uh, no. It's all Namco Bandai's fault. All they had to do was say no to Microsoft. Instead they decided to screw over their fans on Playstation 3 for a quick cash in.

But for some odd reason, people will call Microsoft greedy just like they did over the FF13 nonsense. Here's a hint everyone: Microsoft isn't greedy for offering people money to bring their games to 360 or make them exclusive. The other parties are the greedy ones for taking it. Namco Bandai saw that they could make more money by taking MS's offer rather than releasing a niche series on multiple platforms outside of Japan.

Of course, everyone will ignore all that and hate on Microsoft because that's the cool thing to do these days.

I want to be able to play Infamous ... on my 360.

No you don't. That game is awful. The only thing you want to play inFamous on is a woodchipper.

 

[gphjr14]

Oh Noooo now I'll never get to play this generic preteen filled JRPG.

Oh well

Guess I'll have to settle for inFamous 2 and an inevitable encounter with Uncharted 3

I think only 2 of the heroes are preteens, but yeah keep job assuming you know a game just because it's genre. Hope you enjoy playing games with rugged white guys being the heroes and the dirty unwashed is the villians

Only goes to show how little most people care about this game. Its on the PS3 in Japan if you have a PS3 you should know the games are region free. Anyways back to not caring.

I think you quoted the wrong guy I didn't mention the region thing, and I could care less I have it for my 360.

Nope I'm quoting you and just adding that it isn't that big a deal since you can play it on a PS3 just only in Japanese, so its not too big of a deal.

 

[thethain]

I have a 360 and a PS3, but I'm not gonna buy this, just because of this. Enjoy your lost sale.

I am sure Microsoft and Namco in 2008 (when this was released) care about your decision in 2011 to not buy their no longer in print game.

Anyways, it was an attempt to get some exclusive titles for xbox, Microsoft bought many exclusive deals and this is just another one. That said nowadays they generally acquire exclusivity by just helping with issues of the games and not with big bags of money (although it still works I think).

 

[dragongit]

Well... I've wanted to play Vesperia, now I can't. Thanks Microsoft. Thats really nice of you.

 

[viranimus]

Come on.. Lay off Microsoft. THey bought exclusivity for one JRPG. Seriously. given the hundreds of hours worth of JRPG "goodness" that has always been a hallmark of Sonys stable you cant forgive Microsoft having one of their very own?