Third Party Deals
While it’s great to have exclusives, those alone cannot carry a console. One need only look at the Wii U for proof of that. Sony knew that they needed strong third-party support if they were going to be able to compete with Microsoft and the Xbox One. The Xbox 360 had pulled a lot of attention thanks to exclusivity deals and advertising, so Sony pulled a page right out its book.
Destiny, a new title from Bungie – you know, the creators of Halo, the biggest Xbox game ever – was on its way as a multi-platform title. Sony decided to take the house that Halo built and make it work for them by pushing for exclusive content that included missions, weapons, armor, and more. That push, as simple as it may have seemed, helped to sell tons of PS4s and the company didn’t stop there. They then jumped over and made a similar deal for Call of Duty, a game long considered a cornerstone of the Xbox market. That too proved to be a successful endeavor.
From there Sony would make deals with EA, Square Enix, Ubisoft, several strong indie partners, and more as they provided perfect support for their own strong library. It even allowed for them to release very little in terms of exclusives during 2015, yet still remain on top, a telling sign of intelligent decisions on the business side of things.
