Capcom: Platform exclusivity can still work

Capcom’s marketing vice president Nique Fajors has stated that despite the escalating development costs that have arrived along with the next-generation of games machines, developing games for a lone platform can still be strategically sound.

Speaking to Next-Gen, Fajors stated: Exclusives are driven by gameplay functionality and cost. If you get your gameplay functionality and costs right, exclusivity can work.

Fundamentally, do I think platform exclusivity is dead? No, I don’t believe it’s dead. It goes back to economics, consumer interest and unique playability.”

However, Capcom’s strategy has increasingly moved toward multi-platform development. The firm famously pledged to release its numbered Resident Evil outings exclusively on GameCube, only for it to later port Resident Evil 5 to PS2 and PC.

It also recently announced that former 360-only shooter Lost Planet is on its way to PS3, and Devil May Cry 4 will appear on Microsoft’s platform as well as Sony’s for the first time.

Fajors added: We have so many viable options for development, and consumers have so many choices. I can remember when I was younger, I was committed to Sega. I wouldn’t buy a Nintendo platform. So I rode all the Sega platforms, from Genesis through Saturn and all the way up.

"I think consumers increasingly don’t have that kind of loyalty anymore.”