Microsoft developing for DS!

[lion2]

Not really but check out the official Age of Empires (AOE is owned by Microsoft) site for the DS. It's funny to see Microsoft Logos all over a DS game site.

http://www.ageofempiresds.com/

[Shane R. Monroe]

Yeah, did you notice the title of the page is UNTITLED DOCUMENT? Priceless. Guess they didn't use Front Page eh?

[DaMenace]

Oh yea I did make a comment about this earlier.
It is rather strangely funny..
Microsoft owned company helping make something for a competitor.

[Darksol]

Oh yea I did make a comment about this earlier.
It is rather strangely funny..
Microsoft owned company helping make something for a competitor.

And it makes perfect business sense too! The DS is a great platform based on its number of users to write games for, and they're not losing ****loads of money on hardware! Sounds perfectly legit to me!
And Microsoft needs all the help they can get :) Why not have Halo on the DS ? You have Metroid Hunters.

[BJWanlund]

Why don't we have PDZ and Kameo while we're at it?

BJ

[Yodaporn]

Why don't we have PDZ and Kameo while we're at it?

BJ

I seem to remeber a rare exec teasing at the idea of Perfect Dark 1 ported to the DS.

[Bill_Loguidice]

It actually was a fairly common occurence in time's past for competitors to develop games for each other's systems (Coleco for Atari 2600 and Intellivision, Atari through AtariSoft for almost everything reasonably popular, Mattel for Atari 2600 and ColecoVision (though the latter never made it out under the Mattel banner), etc.). It really only started coming out of vogue with the introduction of the NES, though that did receive its fair share of Atari (through their Tengen software arm) and Sega ports. Today, the idea of an exclusive is too integrated into the business model to ever see this type of thing happen again to anything approaching that degree, and certainly not between the big three right now...

[BJWanlund]

It actually was a fairly common occurence in time's past for competitors to develop games for each other's systems (Coleco for Atari 2600 and Intellivision, Atari through AtariSoft for almost everything reasonably popular, Mattel for Atari 2600 and ColecoVision (though the latter never made it out under the Mattel banner), etc.). It really only started coming out of vogue with the introduction of the NES, though that did receive its fair share of Atari (through their Tengen software arm) and Sega ports. Today, the idea of an exclusive is too integrated into the business model to ever see this type of thing happen again to anything approaching that degree, and certainly not between the big three right now...
Hmm, are we being pessimistic? I think that exclusivity is FAR overrated.

I don't want to have to buy an XBOX 360 just to play Halo, PDZ, and Kameo. Not happening, don't wanna do it.

BJ

[Bill_Loguidice]

Pessimistic? I don't understand what you're getting at. All I'm saying is that exclusivity was a far different thing in the early- to mid-80's then it was now. It's a business model now, a driving factor, a differentiator between systems. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo would never put their product on any remotely competitive system these days, plain and simple.

[loket]

I agree with Bill. I guess "exclusivity" was originally thought of as a selling point for a console or brand. I just don't like it when the word is now the same as "monopoly" (EA big money bags buying the sports licenses) as such not only does it clamp down on competition but quality and innovation/creativity. Also being a big publisher and buying studios, have begone "consolidating" resources; imaginative development studios/departments are relocated or closed and some designers with exclusivity (anti-competition) contracts can not work for other studios on the same genre for a period of time (Ubisoft is famous for this too). I guess this is the way of big business.