Gears of War 3 will be available next year Epic Games has announced, and we expect to hear and see much more at E3. It’s the second biggest franchise on the Xbox 360 and a huge money maker for both Microsoft and Epic Games.
Thing is, Epic Games is an independent studio that must continue to make money to survive and now that the PS3 install base is just about the same size with that of Xbox 360, it’s becoming more and more enticing to make all their games multiplatform. Many still cling on to a tiny bit of hope to see Gears of War 3 on PS3, but Epic Games has constantly stabbed that rumor to death.
But in the future, according to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, Michael Pachter, things might be different, even for the Gears of War franchise.
A few months back we broke news that sent the industry abuzz. Pachter had been on Game Trailers Bonus Round and made some rather feisty comments, he said Epic Games Regretted signing a deal that kept Gears of War exclusive to the Xbox 360. Epic games swiftly denied the claim stating that they’re very happy with Microsoft. But now, instead of backing down, Pachter simply reprised:
“I was on Bonus Round a while ago saying that I thought that Epic regretted making Gears of War for the Xbox 360 and I was quickly corrected by Mark Rein who said we don’t regret a single thing,” Pachter said on a recent episode of his show Pach-Attack.
“Of course they don’t “regret” because they’re all very wealthy and they cut themselves a great deal. I guess what I really meant was future versions of Gears are at least going to be negotiated to allow them to make them all multiplatform, unless Microsoft pays even more.
So the success of Gears allows Epic to squeeze even more money out of that for an exclusive in the future and we’ll see what Epic does. But I don’t think you’re going to get new start up franchises from Epic after Gears that are console exclusives. These guys all want to make money, it is a profit deal.
So what do you think? Is Pachter right? Share your thoughts.
