There are analysts coming forward about the plan to push TitanFall 2 on the PS4 in 2017, when they expect the next iteration to come out. While it may not be the greatest stretch of the imagination ever, thinking Respawn and EA would launch on additional platforms, it’s also the least likely scenario of the possible venture into a sequel of the yet-to-be-released TitanFall. Michael Pachter, one analyst pushing the idea of a multi-console TitanFall 2 the most, goes on record to say:
“I think that this might be the last exclusive that you see from a third-party for a long, long time. I think that had [EA] known at the time that the Xbox One was going to be $100 more than the PS4, I don’t think that they would have done it. I think that they believed that Microsoft was going to kick Sony’s butt this cycle”.
There is a shred of possibility to the statement of third-party exclusives, but that shred is basically dangling in the .1% category. It could happen, but realistically it won’t. The reason why is simple: business competition. Microsoft bought the exclusivity deal for TitanFall. This wasn’t EA or Respawn saying “yeah, lets cut 1/3 of our profits and sell exclusively on Xbox and PC”. No, this was Microsoft being strategic and offering the cash up to keep Sony out of the picture and give Microsoft its first exclusive that really drives the reason to buy an Xbox One way over any reason to buy a PlayStation 4. There are plenty of good games on both next-gen consoles but the reality is neither have offered up anything that demands your decision to buy one or the other. The Xbox One has more unique exclusives to its platform, but Sony would likely catch up before the summer of 2014 with games like Infamous: Second Son. Still, TitanFall is Microsoft investment in itself, just like the Xbox-exclusive Halo was back in 2001 when it launched. There were hardly any other reasons to buy an Xbox, but it didn’t matter because it had Halo and that’s all that mattered in the world to FPS gamers at the time, and Halo was owned by Bungie and Microsoft went forward to acquire Bungie for the game – a piece of history that we shouldn’t expect to repeat itself, but a partnership is certainly likely.
To get back to Pachter and his thoughts on TitanFall 2 being multiplatform:
“I don’t think that you will see EA go exclusive for Titanfall 2. I would guess that this is not a multi-game exclusive deal, it’s just for one – and I think that [the next game] will most definitely come to the PS4. It probably isn’t going to come out for three years, so it’s probably a 2017 release, but it’ll probably be worth the wait”
This, again, is not the likeliest scenario. If Microsoft wants to keep the money coming, locking a TitanFall 2 deal would be a big step in doing so. This all depends on the success of the first game, but at this point it’s kind of silly to assume TitanFall will be anything other than the true Call of Duty killer – one that will destroy that franchise’s popularity and restore balance to the gaming order (something we feel has been long overdue and welcome with great joy). Microsoft have the cash to spend and the Xbox One is nearing its comeback tour after a first round win going to Sony for consoles sold. Pachter makes the claims that foresight on the Xbox One’s $100 price difference would have swayed EA from striking this deal and that Sony’s expected demise not coming true changes the winds of favor for future titles in the franchise. Not true. This game will launch on PC, and there are a legions of gamers on PC that aren’t buying Xbox One or PS4 and will happily pick this game on via Origin and play the crap out of it. The PC sales could easily top ten million, though anything is possible either up or down.
The very best EA could hope for between both XB1 and PS4 platforms is maybe nine million, and that’s if every single console owner picks up a copy of TitanFall. But there’s more – the Xbox 360 will see a TitanFall launch on March 25, and since there’s well over 70 million of those in the world, there’s a chance to cash in heavily on that platform as well. To be honest, TitanFall on PS3 and PS4 would have probably delayed the game several more months because these platforms are somewhat unique and testing would have taken much longer to get through before being in a comfortable place to launch, meaning we’d still probably be in the “looking ahead” stages instead of being less than one week from launch. There’s also the angle of the PS4’s dominance being attributed solely because of more market availability and its recent Japan launch. Having fifty markets for PS4 to the XB1’s mere thirteen is a huge advantage, but the One will pick up the slack this year and it will catch up rapidly with Sony. TitanFall will ensure that as it has moving power and it’s about to launch in an Xbox One bundle that makes the game essentially free when you purchase an Xbox One. A deal like that will greatly help the One move all on its own, but TitanFall as a standalone game is going to push millions of console out the door and Prachter’s whole debacle of EA shying away from exclusivity in the future due to PS4’s stronger out-the-gate sales erodes.
In the end, EA lose little or nothing. Having more potential customers is nice, but there’s a good chance that EA understand the long game that Microsoft is playing and TitanFall will ultimately sell more on the Xbox platform than Sony’s PlayStation platform even if it were released on both consoles to start. To that end, we recommend you never, ever, ever listen to analysts on gaming trends & predictions. They’ve been incorrectly forecasting gaming trends for years and, unfortunately, game-based publications have been going along with them. In the normal business world, it’s easier to work with these kinds of forecasting, but in the gaming world there’s a much greater openness to how business is conducted and to say that a yet-to-be-confirmed TitanFall 2 is a lock-in for PS4 is likely Prachter hoping he’s right to earn credibility rather than being smart about assessing the bigger picture. Nobody can predict the outcome of the next TitanFall game unless you work for Respawn or the part of EA handling the franchise. But what you should remember is that Microsoft is able to drop the cash to keep it on Xbox and away from PlayStation and that they will not hesitate to go there after they’ve seen the impact that the game has on their platform. In fact, Sony won’t have the ability to drop cash on any big sellers in the near future because the rest of their company is becoming a meteoric disaster (TVs, computing especially). Still, just like Halo over a decade ago, TitanFall will make the Xbox One the better purchase simply because you will want to play this with all your friends. If you were going to place any bets, you’d probably be better off betting on Microsoft, especially with all the team-play going on between Respawn Entertainment and the Xbox hardware/software engineering groups to improve the console.
UPDATE: If you’re wondering what the next most likely scenario is to Microsoft paying to keep TitanFall an Xbox console exclusive, you’ll likely see Microsoft shell some cash out for a timed-exclusive similar to what Sony is doing for Destiny and what Microsoft has done with Call of Duty in recent years. Microsoft can pay to delay another TitanFall game by weeks or even months to get people to opt for the Xbox version over the PlayStation version. We still think Microsoft will go for a console exclusive move to support the sales of its consoles down the road, but in the event they decide they don’t need to then this would be the next most likely scenario to play out in years to come under the assumed TitanFall franchised.
Xbox One Game Source 