I doubt this for a couple reasons.

a) There is a cell phone version of Oblivion already in the works... Cell phone... PS3... PSP... 360... PC... overkill?

b) Microsoft-haters who are FORMER Bethesda fans have started calling Bethesda "Micro-Bethesda" and the like on the Elder Scrolls forums... Microsoft & Bethesda have extremely good relations.

But, I guess we'll see. As you said, grain of salt.

Oblivion on cell phones already exists. I can get it on mine now if I want. Story line (press propagnda) is the same basic one. Save the hier to the Septim throne and shut the jaws of Oblivion.

Overkill? You can get Tony Hawk on every platform (including mobile phones), why not Obivion? Splinter Cell 3, every platform (including mobile phones).

I'm not saying either rumour is true, but they are 2 of the more believable ones, IMHO.

I was considering trying Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion because it's screenies look great and the gameplay from what I hear is really good too. There is just one major factual error with your article Kyle and that is you claim Oblivion is an Xbox 360 exclusive. Has anyone ever heard of a magical gaming system it's on called the PC?

Actually, those are not my words, they are Gaming Age's words. Next time I quote I'll be sure to change the color as well

Actually a lot of places don't count the PC when talking about consoles games. They refer more to 'console exclusive' than actual 'exclusive'.

Well, something to remember here is that the word "Exclusive" has really evolved over the past few years. Where-as once "Exclusive" meant that it would only appear on that system, now we not only have "Console exclusive" but also "Time exclusive" and "Generation Exclusive"

Basically what they figured out is that "Exclusive" titles sell systems, but cost money to secure the rights to. So what did they do? Made Exclusive more of a PR thing than anything else, now we say "GTA will be exclusive" and mean "You'll have to wait 5 months to buy it on another system"

Nature of the beast.

-Andy

Hahaha, OldschoolVgamer, good job!

Yeah, Andy, that's true, but at the same time we need to be more clear on what we mean by "exclusive" so that thoughts aren't accidentally brewed up. I think it is now, just one huge PR thing, but I guess we can put a stop to that and be more clear in our stories, eh?

Nature of the media.

" Exclusive games spend a lot of time recouping the costs. Multiplatform games make it up that much quicker."

Actually, Exclusive games (the big ones like GTA) are "bought" by the game companies. Especially shit you see that's time exclusive, a franchise like GTA or Halo etc. are worth ALOT of money to console manufacturers, because they can definitely sell a system more than PR can, so companies like MS and sony go out of their way to woo developers of these high powered franchises to develop exclusively for their console. With MS more often than not this involves buying the dev (Lionhead), Sony tends to just chuck money at them (Rockstar)so it really depends.

Single system titles that are new franchises and/or pieces of shit take a longer time to make back that initial investment. Big titles that are single system are only single system because the dev is getting big bucks.

:)

And yes OSVG, I know that it was more like 6 months before a rockstar exclusive hits other systems... I was just throwing out a number :) I don't mind nit-picky fyi.

TwistedFate, totally understand where you're coming from. But I'm gonna have to say: you're absolutely wrong.

Franchises that go exclusive recieve so much support from the console manufact. that it's ridiculous! Advertising, development support, MONEY, and the notice that if you need major help, your manufact. is there to help you.

Single-system franchises do recieve MUCH money for being single-system. There was an article about this, I believe on IGN... Can't quite remember. The developer doesn't need to regain sales as much because they recieve money and support from their console manufact.

Releasing on another platform is viable alright: viable for those who don't recieve as much support as they should from their console manufact. Look at all of Microsoft's exclusive's. Name some that have gone multiplatform? ... Yeah, I thought so. Now look at Sony. Most of Sony's exclusivity has gone, at some point or another, to Microsoft.

It's VERY viable for Sony's side, but it really doesn't do much for Microsoft's. It's all about manufact. support.

(Halo 2 for Vista is a simple thing: Vista is a damn new platform, they know PC players will rush to buy it!)

"Franchises that go exclusive recieve so much support from the console manufact. that it's ridiculous! Advertising, development support, MONEY, and the notice that if you need major help, your manufact. is there to help you."

Go back and read my last post please. Actually read it this time. Read it very closely. Here, I'll help you out with the right spot.

"Just because a manufacturer bought it doesn't mean the developement deficit went away. It just shifted to the manufacturer. It still takes longer for an exclusive title, regardless of how desireable it is to have. The difference is the developer is no longer trying to recoup it."

Everything you said makes my point stronger. Tons of money is still going out the door. Sure it's not the devs money, but it is still money that needs to be recouped through sales before a profit is made on sales. You guys are acting like since the development team doesn't cover the costs, there are no costs to recover. Advertising costs money no matter who signs the check. Printing case inserts costs money no matter who signs the check. Payroll costs money no matter who signs the check.

"Name some that have gone multiplatform?"

Are there any non-first party exclusives? I can't think of any, but I never had an ex-box (360 only). I'm not sure if you noticed, but MS has a tendancy to buy up companies to maintain their stranglehold on the industry. It's easy to stay exclusive to the company that signs your paychecks.

Andy, you're right about one thing. Sony throws around money for PS2 exclusive or time exclusive titles and Microsoft does overtake developers to make XBX exclusive or time exclusive titles ala Bungie Software and Halo and Halo 2. But I will have to say this, TwistedFate is right about development costs. The amount of money someone spends just doesn't disappear into thin air. The developer may make back some money through game console manufacturers who are willing to pay for their game to be an exclusive for their system, but then that's money out of the manufacturers wallets and the main ways in which they make up the money is through sales of their console to play that game like you said. Still the money doesn't disappear.

However TwistedFate, I was going to elaborate on my point what I meant about ports of any kind, but I didn't want to. If you look at any of my previous posts on this site, I have a problem with somewhat lengthy posts and I wanted to break the habit. But to get more specific about my point, to hopefully end your confusion, I wasn't trying to say that games ported to other systems won't work on other systems because they sincerely can. Hell, just look at Tomb Raider Legend. Right now, on the popular game site Gamespot.com, that game is ranked #11 out of 18,663 overall (every system totalled up and in the top .1 percentile) and #6 out of 5,453 for the PC (within the top .2 percentile). Those are extremely good ranks on the PC when compared to the console versions so people did like it on both PC and consoles. You're right in that regard. Same goes for any Halo, GTA, Animal Crossing, or anything else. Those games are good on the PC (my only game system) or any of the consoles. I never think that a game can't be good on a system other than for what it was obviously oriented for to begin with (in most cases the XBX or PS2). My complaint is with the cost of the PS3. Even if this version of Oblivion is well received on the PS3, which I won't automatically think it won't, sales of it could be affected by the price of the PS3 console itself. The quality of the game won't mean shit if the system to play it on is too damned expensive.

Think about it from the average consumer standpoint. Say it's around PS3 console release time and you want to buy the game Oblivion but are trying to decide which system you want to play it on. You have in front of you the decision between PC, XBX360, or PS3. The PS3 itself is say $600 while a basic XBX360 bundle is by that point say $300 dollars or a halfway decent PC costs about the same as the PS3 (which is possible if you search the right websites, believe me on that and in some places it's getting cheaper), then if you are looking for the cheapest then the XBX360 and the version of Oblivion for that is your obvious choice. If you're either a little richer or don't like the XBX360 then you have to decide between either the PS3 or PC version of Oblivion. A PC version to me sounds like the better deal right off the bat because a ton of mods have already been made for it on the XBX360 and PC as well as the PC itself at that point has a much wider library of games than the PS3 does so you have more choice of other titles to sweeten the deal. The PS3 at its' release is only going to have a few titles, not very many and you'll have to wait for the number to increase and in the meantime play old PS1 or PS2 titles on it (backwards compatibility)

What I'm trying to say is if you just bought a newer and faster piece of hardware for your PC or a new computer altogether (pre-built), or an XBX360 bundle to play Oblivion (people already have) then that person, if we're talking about a one-system lover, is more than likely not going to pay for the game again on another system as well as the system itself because they already have the game and the system they play it on.

For people who are Playstation lovers or those who buy multiple systems who both are willing to both fork over the speculated $500 to $700 for a PS3 and want to play the game, I think that they won't have any gripes about how good it is. I'm glad they got what they wanted. Good for them.

Sherveen, you're also right about something else. Microsoft does benefit from sales of the XBX360 consoles as well as the Windows Vista OS. Even though PC game sales have declined slightly over the past few years, Microsoft is still going for sales of Windows XP and Vista despite their increasing sales of the XBX360 console being quite a bit higher. They have two different ways of profiting in this case and if they fix the broken leg, being Windows-based PC games, that's even more profit for them. Why profit one way when you can profit two? Microsoft loves money, there's no doubt.

BTW to Sheerven, both Andy and TwistedFate are right about Microsoft buying up developers to keep the developers games exclusive to themselves as I've already said towards the top of this post.

Congrats to me, I think this is the most commented article ever :)

Hawkes, you're right :) It's possible though, I just don't see why Microsoft would really care if it went to the PS3. The game would be out for 8 months, the majority of sales have passed. In fact, this is a possibility that I see:

Oblivion is a launch game for the PS3, $60. The PC version will already have gone down in price, and the Xbox 360 version will hit $30 or something along those lines.

Sorry TwistedFate for confusing you to begin with. I just wanted to break my habit of doing long posts on this site so I didn't feel like going into detail about what I was trying to say because of this.

Hey Kyle, I see that you agree with me on the price incentive thing. Even though I was talking about the game systems themselves, I failed to actually mention the games themselves. Thanks for reminding me. This goes to you Kyle and everyone else: Supply and demand effects everyone!

Sherveen, so what you're saying is that Microsoft uses either one of two strategies to keep games exclusive to themselves? You're saying that in order to get titles exclusive to themselves they either buy the company and tell them what systems to make the games for or give them tons of financial backing to make the games under the agreement of keeping it on either one of the two systems Microsoft has a stranglehold over? Makes perfect sense and I agree!

BTW people, what do you think about my comments about the lack of potential success for the PS3? I hope I didn't anger any Playstation lovers here, I just felt like I had to put my opinion out there over this issue.

I have another wierd little theory about the PS3 console sales potential. I have noticed a pattern in certain companies length of being top dog in video game markets. I've drew this from numerous websites and it's just an estimation of mine. I've noticed that companies that were considered to be the best out in terms of game consoles are only considered just that for roughly ten to fifteen years. I could go into detail but I fear that this all will go off topic if I do state why. But to summarize my prediction I think that Sonys' position as being top dog in term of game consoles is about to be shafted or at least be good for one more generation (the PS3) and nothing past that (possible PS4, PS5, etc.) I just have that strange feeling. As for who will be the new kings of consoles, well that will go without saying. Once again I don't mean to anger Sony Playstation 2 fans here, but I just have a hunch.

OldSchool - You're operating under the assumption that people will choose a system based on one game. I think there's a huge potential for success with Oblivion on the PS3 because those who are going to buy a PS3 anyway, regardless of Oblivion, will snap it up.
This is a game with very few critics - a ton of people who buy a PS3 for games like MGS4 would see Oblivion and, not having a PC which can run it or a 360, would buy it.
I can't see there being any loss in a game of this popularity.

And is Bethesda really loyal to Microsoft? I gathered that, as has already been said, the main reason for keeping it on the Xbox was for performance reasons in the other consoles. Have Bethesda actually said anything about their loyalty to Microsoft?
I'm hoping not, I'd like to see this on the PS3.

typo, that should say "I have a PS2 because of GT3."

I hate to say this Kieran, but TwistedFate is right. There are some, if not a lot of people who will buy a system just for one game or a scant few games. I know of people who would buy a PS2 just for the latest GTA title and possibly a few other games to go with it. If you ask me it's a waste of cash. In a way, it's sort of like getting rich and buying your own private jet just to fly around (perhaps a bad example). You could use it for so much more but instead chose to use it for only one feature. That isn't my mentality. Whenever I get a new piece of PC hardware I want to try more than just one game that is graphically glitzy or has a ton of activity on screen. I don't want just one or two features I want the whole enchilada! In other words: Dammit I want my moneys worth!

Besides Kieran, you obviously didn't read my previous posts. Read them very, very carefully. I mean seriously read them. I was not necessarily trying to operate under the sole assumption that Oblivion is going to be THE PS3 system seller. I talked about PS3 console pricing itself possibly being a factor in whether or not the game would sell well. Need I quote myself: "The quality of the game won't mean shit if the system to play it on is too damned expensive." TwistedFate was, at first, under the assumption that I was trying to say that the game wouldn't sell well on the PS3 because people would already be playing it on the XBX360 and PC but I clarified to him. I also never said in particular that that would be the only game they would get for the PS3 because there isn't much doubt that it would be just one of a couple of choices of games they would go for. If people will want to play it on the PS3 then all power to them! There is a good chance it could sell well on the PS3, I won't try to erase that possibility.

Before I forgot TwistedFate, I didn't think of this before but just did last night. You said "Of course ports work..." and at first I was agreeing with you but then realized there were some ports that didn't work. Examples? The game published by Fox Interactive by the name of No One Lives Forever was originally made for the PC and released in November of 2000. It was considered a really good game and as a result was ported to the PS2 in 2002 with extra missions included in it but didn't sell well there because of dated graphics and confusing controls. They re-released a game that at that point had a level of graphical quality that was already being outmoded for standards of that year and the controls were supposedly bad. The PS2 version sold like crap. There were also PC versions of Final Fantasy 7 and 8 (I own both), but they didn't have interchangable resolution settings, you had to exit back to the desktop to reconfigure all of the controls instead of in-game, and in the case of FF8 there were some strange graphical glitches escpecially for those with Nvidia graphics cards. Once again they didn't sell well. Some companies jobs of porting really suck and companies such as Capcom and Square Enix have a hard time with that especially in console-to-PC ports. So there are some solid examples pointing the other way. Sorry, just felt like for every good point there should be a counter-point. It's a good idea to consider all possiblities, or at least as many as you can, in a situation so as not to become disappointed if the possibility you stated did not come true. Just a thought. Also, don't feel bad that you play a lot of games. I myself, and I shit you not, have roughly about 150 PC games! It's hard for me to get truly bored!

Whoops. Perhaps I should rephrase my first sentence to "you're operating under the assumption that LOTS/ALL people will buy a system based on a game or two."

You guys are the 60738 best, thanks so much for the help.