No PS3, you can’t come to the Splinter Cell: Conviction party

Question by apostam24:

Q. I saw the splinter cell conviction gameplay today but then I found out that it isn’t coming out on the PS3. Why would you do that ?

A. Splinter Cell conviction is a true Microsoft exclusive title and there are no plans to have Splinter Cell Conviction on other platforms. There are several reasons behind this choice. First of all, Splinter Cell games are historically linked with Microsoft platforms. The first Splinter Cell on the original Xbox was one of the first games to fully exploit the console’s technical possibilities. At that time, Microsoft really believed in the game potential and provided strong support to promote it. So, there is a “link of heart” between the franchise and the platform. Some games are like this (think of Final Fantasy for instance). The second reason behind this choice is purely linked to production. Having a single target platform means that we can optimize the game even further, because we only have one type of – console – hardware to support.

Sounds pretty sweet and endearing huh? “Microsoft really believed in the game potential and provided strong support to promote it. So, there is a “link of heart” between the franchise and the platform. ” If only it were that simple.

In an interview with Kikizo (who by the way has scored some great interviews lately) Ubisoft’s Steven Masters has a different explanation behind Ubi’s strategy. And this time it was more dollars and cents than “link of heart”:

“Ubisoft as a company now has a lot of experience with PS3. Our processes, tools, techniques are very well-developed – we could absolutely execute on the PS3 if we had the opportunity, but like I said it was a business decision.”

Looks like Microsoft is really playing hardball lately. I can just imagine how much money they had to fork over to get this “link of heart”.