Microsoft: Exclusive titles are "less important"

Microsoft's Boris Schneider-Johne, product manager for Xbox 360 in Germany, has explained that the company believes exclusive titles are losing influence and have become "less important".

Speaking to Golem.de and translated by GameRush, Schneider-Johne explained how the influence of exclusive titles on console sales was on the decline and that, given the costs of development, publishers and developers only "rarely" accepted console exclusivity.

"In the past, in the eighties and nineties, that was a major issue. I remember the big 'Mario vs Sonic' debates. What we see today is that the influence of exclusive titles on the sales curves becomes ever smaller," he said.

"In addition, we are in a situation where there is a head-to-head race on several consoles and nobody is super clear in leadership - especially in matters of the PlayStation 3 against Xbox 360."

"Given the production costs of the games, it is hardly possible for developers to commit themselves exclusively to someone," he added.

"Now Sony makes its own games for the [PS3] console, we make our own games for the [Xbox 360] console. The titles are exclusive, as they are also attempts [to] turn out the best of the console, but someone like Electronic Arts or Activision can have a business model of rarely developing for a console exclusively. Therefore, the exclusive title is a little less important."