14 DAY TRIAL // Jim Ryan, the leader of the European division of Sony, says that his company does not feel the need to pay in order to make sure that it secures third-party exclusives for the PlayStation 4, as Microsoft did with Rise of the Tomb Raider, because the home console has an already solid lineup of games.
Speaking in an interview with CVG, the executive states that Sony has a lot of internal studios, both small and big, that are creating content for its hardware platforms.
Ryan adds, “I think the partnership we have with Activision on Destiny is a good example of where it makes really good sense for them, it makes good sense for us and it benefits our consumers - when you complement those two things we think that gives us a pretty complete position in the market.”
At the moment, Sony and Electronic Arts have a deal that will see some content for the first-person shooter only offered on PlayStation devices for one full year.
The executive adds, “So do we feel the need to go out and buy outright exclusivity? Probably not. You saw last night that before the media briefing we showed updated videos of games that we had revealed at E3. That's because we wanted to keep the show itself full of new, fresh things. We think that gave us a good, strong, convincing portfolio of exclusive stuff and we're happy with that.”
During the Gamescom 2014 Microsoft press conference, the company announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider would be launched next year only on the Xbox One home console.
Since then, the official line was changed a little to state that the exclusivity would be timed, although it is not yet clear for how long and whether the game will ever arrive on the PS4.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is the next full installment in the Lara Croft-powered franchise and the development team at Crystal Dynamics says that the Microsoft deal is one of the ways that will allow the entire universe to grow and compete with other AAA series.
At the moment, the PlayStation 4 from Sony has managed to sell more than 10 million devices all over the world and demand shows no sign of slowing down.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has not offered sales details for its own titles, but rumors suggest that about 6 million units have been shipped to stores.