For Platinum, exclusivity deals are a good way to get niche games made
Some of the developers at Japan's Platinum Games speak to GameSpot about how the studio makes games and why it's working on so many projects at once -- many of which are console exclusives.
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"I think there's this idea going around that we might be an easy studio to work with, but that doesn't mean that we're just making whatever for whoever, whenever."
- Platinum Games cofounder Atsushi Inaba.
As you can see from the quote above, the staff of independent Japanese game developer Platinum Games are well aware of the company's reputation for tackling multiple projects at once.
The company turns ten next year, and in advance of the occasion a number of Platinum staffers spoke to GameSpot about how the studio's approach to making games has (or hasn't) changed in the years since it was born from the ashes of Capcom's defunct Clover Studio.
Developers may especially appreciate comments made by studio leader Atsushi Inaba about why Platinum seems to cut so many console exclusivity deals, as it suggests Platinum makes them to help boost the profile of games the studio wants to make but might otherwise be a bit too niche or expensive to fund and promote.
"We don't have a specific stance towards console exclusives, but what we do have are games that we really want to make, and it's very difficult now to find partners who are ready to make big bets on larger games like that," Inaba told GameSpot. "In the cases where we've created a console exclusive, that's often been a case of us wanting to get a game made and not stopping until we've done that."
It's unclear whether such a strategy could be applied successfully by other developers, but it does seem to be working out well for Platinum: the studio currently has three console exclusives in development for three different platforms (Scalebound for Xbox One, Star Fox Zero for Nintendo's Wii U and Nier: Automata for the PlayStation 4, though Inaba notes the Nier deal was publisher Square Enix's idea, not Platinum's) and seems to have successfully developed offbeat titles like The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2 thanks (at least in part) to console exclusivity deals.
For more comments from Platinum developers, check out the full feature over on GameSpot.
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