In a way, I understand the business behind it. The whole deal of buying "timed exclusive" rights to a DLC is good for:

• The console that's getting the DLC first
  
• The fans who own and want to play on that console
  
• The publisher who is getting significant extra revenue from the console maker who is buying the timed exclusive rights from them

I also understand why Sony would rather spend money developing games exclusive to their console since the majority of 3rd party console games ported to the PS3 are more or less equivalent in quality to their X360 counterpart. Sometimes the quality is even diminished because the games are developed for the X360 first then ported over to the PS3. The only way for Sony to differentiate their console is to make games or have games developed by third parties specifically for the PS3 platform, to push its unique capabilities and technologies to the limit.

That pretty much just leaves out the fans of the game, who ones do not own the platform that the "timed exclusive" is released on. They pretty much left out in the cold, playing the waiting game. It's not only bad for those players but despite the large sum of money changing hands between the console maker and the publisher, it's bad for the "image" of the publisher who would rather take the money than please the fans, even if those fans are in the minority it's tough for them to not feel slighted.

So each publisher that takes money to make a timed exclusive, would have to weigh in the benefit of the immediate revenue with the sentiment of the fans who will ultimately be left out while the timed exclusive is in effect and will maybe affect the long term revenue and loyalty of those fans.

The good part is, after "Dead Money", future DLC add-ons for FONV will be released simultaneously on all three platforms (X360, PS3 and PC)


http://bethblog.com/index.php/2011/02/04/dead-money-coming-to-ps3-pc-more-content-on-the-way/

Honestly, that's some of the best news I've heard gaming-wise in a very long time and I'm happy Bethesda is going this route with future FONV add-ons.

PC is not part of Microsoft. PC is actually a trademark of IBM, and there are no rules about having to run Windows or any Microsoft products on a machine.


You cant insert anything about mods, because the only reason why consoles cant use the GECK or mods is because they can't run the GECK and have overseeing eyes on what does and does not get distributed on their hardware. PCs do not have those limitations. So that is a moot point.

i refuse to believe that maybe it is better but i refuse to believe that for obious reasons.

Microsoft has alot of money we all know this. Even if Sony came up with as much or more money then Microsoft gave to Bethesda it still would not matter. Because Bethesda signed a deal with Microsoft which means Bethesda could not take money from anyone else. If sony came up with the money and Bethesda let sony come out with Dead Money at the same time as Microsoft or during the time period during the agreement, Microsoft could have sued Bethesda into the ground for breach of contract.

If the complaint is "why did Sony not try to do the deal first?" Maybe be they tried to but Bethesda wanted more :deal:

Businesses negotiate before signing deals. If Sony had wanted the exclusive rights, they could have outbid MS with no legal repercussions. It is possible that Bethesda didn't bring Sony in to the negotiation and signed with MS outright, but we don't know that and can't rightfully make that assumption. We can only "assume" that Sony had it's chance and decided to take a pass.

Saying Bethesda is losing out is like saying that Sony is losing out by keeping Gran Turismo exclusive instead of porting it to the 360. They made their choice, and they clearly don't care, I guess there is apparently such thing as "enough money". Judging by the fact that there's discussion on the forums from PC and PS3 players playing Dead Money though, people are buying it. If they lost $10 from you (or whatever their cut is after Sony gets done), that was obviously a risk they were willing to take. Ultimately, if you wanted to play it and you're not just because of how long it took them to release it, the only person you're really hurting is yourself. It was a pretty excellent piece of DLC in my opinion, I played through it fairly slowly and spent about 11 hours in it, so that's less than a dollar an hour of entertainment, hard to find that kind of value anymore (going to the movies, you're looking at usually $6/hour of entertainment, a concert could be anywhere from $10 - $100 or more per hour of entertainment, etc). Overall I'm sure it was a good business decision for Bethesda.

Still bought it it was alot quicker than the nine months it took to get the fallout 3 dlc and I still bought those. I've always been able to let it go for a while and then pick it back up when the dlc was released.

again the game is on all platforms so dlc should be out for all platforms no exclusive crap, end of!

xbox users deserve DLC first becasue we have to pay monthly fees.

That is far. Still only Microsoft has the money to spend on winning a bidding war for a DLC exclusive. It is also not far for Bethesda to do such a thing. Yeah they are a business but to favour one group over another group of fans just svcks. For all I know there was no bidding, that Microsoft just walked up to Bethesda with a really large cheque.

Point is Sony could have made a better bid but they are a business too and trying to outbid Microsoft would be madness.

You missed the whole point here, the point is that the gap is so huge and that it is not that huge on all games, like I've said, the First Strike for ps3 and xbox compared to dead money on ps3 and xbox. I could spend the 10 € for the DLC right now if I just had the interest of playing New Vegas again and I don't want to buy the DLC, play it though and then again wait for another DLC because I'm tired of the base game, instead I want to find the inner Fallout spark in me to keep me playing it for a month after I've beaten the DLC.

Only the ones who play online and Fallout NV is a single player game. I have been thinking about that and found out that xbox (probably) gets exclusives just because of the fact that microsoft has money to spend from online fees on DLCs for all sorts of games. That still doesn't explain why first strike for Bops came 30 days after Xbox and Dead money came 60 days after xbox.

Isn't there a "free" XBL account type without as many features? Silver or somesuch? You don't need online features for a SP game, so... Argument falters?