Remember when we first mentioned of a
big third party exclusive being announced by Microsoft at E3? Well, rumors are intensifying around this particular announcement, and some more tidbits have been released by people with inside sources.
First of all, Neogaf user BruceLeeroy(who is considered a trustworthy insider on the board)
hinted that it’s going to be a timed exclusive, adding that “2015 is going to be awesome”. This makes sense, as
Microsoft would have to pay a huge amount of money in order to get a full fledged exclusive from a third party with the lead that PlayStation 4 gained on Xbox One in terms of units sold in the market.
Shortly after this post, thuway added that this isn’t anything like
Mass Effect,
Resident Evil, or
Red Dead. It’s going to be a new entry in a series that’s been “off the radar” for a while, and it could be compared to
Splinter Cell: Conviction (which released only for Xbox 360 & PC) in terms of importance as an exclusive.
Obviously, this still leaves us guessing as to which title we’re talking about. It could be
Rainbow Six or
Prince of Persia – the former’s last game released in 2008, the latter in 2010; it could also be
Homefront 2, which
Crytek is supposedly developing (even though we know nothing about it). Both
Ubisoft and Crytek have released Xbox One exclusives already (
Fighter Within and
Ryse). Still, I wonder if timed exclusives really make sense – unless we’re talking about one year off-limits and a big franchise, I don’t really think it’s worth it;
just yesterday EA announced Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare for PlayStation 4, coming exactly six months after the Xbox One release. I don’t think the game moved any significant number of Xbox One units, and PlayStation users will also get the “definitive” version running at native 1080P, unlike the 900P used on Xbox One.
In any case, we’ll know everything soon enough as the E3 conferences are just ten days away now. Are you hyped already?
I wonder if DirectX had anything to do with the delay.
