Sony looks to include first-party titles in its E-Distrubition strategy
Sony is claiming that it has another trump card for its PlayStation 3 when compared to the XBOX 360. Sony is committed to distributing games digitally through its E-Distribution Initiative including first-party games. "Our first party projects are all unique to PS3. Some of our games, by virtue of their design and hardware demands, simply couldn't work on Xbox 360," said SCEA Santa Monica director of external production John Hight. Microsoft's XBOX Live Arcade, on the other hand, has been mainly limited to third-party efforts and classic titles.
Sony is looking to a digital distribution model for a wide variety of games to help curtail inventory risk, game cost and piracy in the gaming industry. In this essence, Sony envisions a system that sounds quite similar to Valve's Steam. The move would also help to starve off used game sales which Sony isn't too keen on in the first place. Gamasutra reports:
Hight confirmed that Sony is firmly committed to developing games for digital distribution within its own first-party studios - unlike Microsoft, which has focused mainly on looking to third parties to supply games for Xbox Live Arcade. According to Hight, Sony will "fund development for first party games, and we are open to self-funded games."
Whether Microsoft will feel compelled to respond with its own first-party efforts on XBOX Live Arcade remains a mystery. The boys in Redmond will likely just sit back and see how Sony fares once the PS3 is released.
