Developer of Ratchet and Clank, Resistance signs on to create an original game for Xbox 360 and PS3 with Electronic Arts publishing through external developer program.
From Spyro the Dragon and Ratchet & Clank to Resistance, Insomniac Games has been a premiere developer for the PlayStation family of consoles. While gamers frequently--though mistakenly--believe the studio to be a part of Sony, Insomniac has always been an independent developer.
The studio is providing a strong reminder of that today, as it has announced a deal with Electronic Arts' EA Partners program that will see an all-new Insomniac property arrive on the Xbox 360, as well as the PlayStation 3. Neither the game's title nor its planned release window was announced.
"We want to reach more players," Insomniac founder and CEO Ted Price told GameSpot. "We've always been very excited about our PS3 fan base, but we're at the time in our company growth where we would like to also bring the entertainment experiences we're creating to the Xbox 360 fan base…Certainly, our interest is in owning what we create. And working with EAP, we can do that, and that's a boon for us."
Price was also adamant that the move should not be viewed as a rejection of Sony or an abandonment of the series it has made for the electronics giant.
"I want to make it clear that we're not stopping working with Sony," Price said. "We've had a long relationship with Sony, and we've produced some great franchises together, and our commitment to them and those franchises--Ratchet and Resistance--remain just as strong." (A third Resistance game was hinted at by a billboard on a Baton Rouge movie set last year.)
Insomniac is the latest in a string of high-profile independent developers to announce a big publishing deal. Earlier this year, EA Partners came to terms with Respawn Entertainment, the upstart studio formed by ex-Infinity Ward executives Jason West and Vince Zampella after the pair were fired by Activision. That publisher then made headlines by signing an exclusive 10-year deal with Halo developer Bungie to create a line of games based on an original intellectual property.
Price acknowledged the successes of some independent developers of late but stopped short of ascribing bigger picture significance to the deals.
"I don't know if this is a trend, necessarily," Price said. "I think the industry's going to continue to evolve, and we're going to see different types of deals…different approaches every year."
EA Partners general manager David DeMartini similarly balked when asked if the deals signaled a change in the developer-publisher balance of power.
"I like to categorize it as balance of partnership more so than balance of power," DeMartini said. "And in that balance of partnership, the entity that has the greatest influence over creative direction should have the most creative control. And that's why as it relates to the well-established independent studios like Insomniac…like Respawn, they absolutely should have control over the direction that their property goes."
In a post on Insomniac's official Web site, Price further explained the impact this agreement will have on Insomniac's future titles. "We've been developing games on an annual pace during the last 16 years," Price said. "One thing that has become apparent to us, though, is that in order to live up to our own high standards of quality, we want to give ourselves more development time to iterate and polish our games. All future Insomniac titles will benefit from longer development cycles, which will directly benefit you, our fans."
Gamers eager to see what direction Insomniac is heading in will need to be patient. DeMartini said the publisher won't be revealing anything more about Insomniac's EA Partners game at next month's Electronic Entertainment Expo.
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
@rayzero2002: Why would the developers care about helping you pick a platform? Especially if they're multi-platform developers? Actually, developers staying on one platform only helps Sony or Microsoft. If exclusive titles didn't exist, I wouldn't own a PS3, Xbox 360, and a Wii. Meanwhile, developers could be selling more games.
If they are really smart: Highest prices and (atm) no pirates=PS3 If they are dumb: Pirates, new public and away from their fans=Xbox360 Best option: Both!
If Insomniac is going to start making exclusive games for the 360 as well as the PS3... looks like I'm goinig to have to look into getting a 360. I have been a fan of Insomniac games ever since their Spyro series on the PS1. Always really good games.
cool i wonder how many more studios are out there like this that actually have nothing to do with sony but are just brown nosing. they should all go multiplatfrom
@ christ4ever9889 I just liked having incomniac exclusive to the ps3, cause I just love insomniac and the ps3, I just liked it the way it was. It's just a fanboy thing... I used the word just way to much in this comment.
@MetalZombieII I have both systems so I have no idea what you're talking about. Am I not allowed to say their games suck? Uncharted is an overrated POS and so is Resistance. Ratchet and Clank was decent on the PS2 but seems to have overstayed its welcome.
@mf1986 I don't know who is this KaBo0m person is. but whatever! you $ony fanboy....wait I seen his comment. hes a retarded $ony fanboy! I'm a fangirl.
I mean alot of people I know jumped from a PS2 to an Xbox 360 so this can't be a bad deal for them.
They're use to working with more legroom. I think they're stuff is still going to look the best on the PS3. Although I'm sure insomniac can dish out some great stuff for any console.
Insomniac is finally throwing a bone to the xbots. But I wouldn't get too excited kids. The key word here seems to be "original game" and an ongoing franchise. So Uncharted, Resistance and Ratchet and Clank are staying where they belong.
they wont make ratchet or resistance for xbox. although insomniac developed them, sony owns the rights to publish them so even if they wanted to they couldnt make those games multi-platform. just like halo and gears are only on and ever will be on xbox.
I hope this is not true.I can't imagine Resistance,one of my favourites on the console I HATE!!! If this happens soon enough the PS3 sales will be reduced a lot and everyone will buy xbox 360 because of its cheapness
Orbytel If the 360 has so much better computing power than the PS3, why is it that most 360 exclusive look horrible compared to PS3 games?
wish things work out for the best for Insomniac. disappointing nonetheless to hear the news though. i always worry when games go multi because quality weakens, but i have faith in Insomniac and that they will not forget us PS fans. ^_^
well that is pretty good, @yoshimitzuPwnz they would create original titles to be multi-platform, no one said anything about Ratchet and clank going to x360.
Pretty soon all the games will be multi-platform.. Because everybody wants to make money.. I certainly understand, but pretty soon there will not be no need to buy any particular system base on exclusive. It's a great thing 360 will be able to enjoy the action.. (I'm a ps3 fanboy!!!)... I think more game developers need to realize that we need certain exclusives to determine what console we are going to buy.
Maybe Insomniac will do the next Dead Space! (Probably not) Insomniac has a lot of experience when it comes to Si-Fi.
@nonfanboygamer1 you say this is such a big blow to Sony yet you fail to mention that Bungie just went multi-platform. According to 90% of the 360 fanboys I've seen in comments sections in the past few years they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Sony has always set themselves ahead of the pack with their first party exclusives. Insomniac makes great games for sure but they aren't in the same league as Naughty Dog, Guerilla and Sony Santa Monica. The Xbox exclusive lineup is a joke at best with one good leg to lean on called Mass Effect 2. Other than that mostly overhyped crap. Crap like Bungie. I could care less that they are going multiplatform.
Are GS readers illiterate? Scrolling down the comments list I've counted 5 (I quit reading after that) different commenters who seem to think this means Ratchet & Clank is coming to the Xbox 360. People, read the freaking article! Rather than reply to multiple posts saying "can't wait to play Ratchet and Clank on 360" I'll just say this here once. Taken from the official site. Ratchet and Clank is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. Same applies for Resistance. These games could still see sequels on PS3, not 360.
This is a huge blow to ps3 owners. Resistance 3 on 360? Xbox already has better online and more exclusives. Resident evil? Grand theft auto? Sony needs to get more developers in their pocket. Developers are obviously all about the money, it's disgusting
@fps_d0minat0r I'm sure you've never played Crysis! and DO NOT ever give comments if you've never played it!! TURD!! I commented on PS3 section because my brother used to have a fat PS3, and now he sells it for X360 (and I respect his decision)!! Crysis is a sand-box games with high replay-ability value, and more important multi-player on Crysis is Impressive, Quick, & Competitive, rather than MGS4, MGS4 has linear gameplay and bad-multi-player!! I've played it!! do you understand!! Play IT!! then give a comment!! and I believe the PS3 users will buy Crysis 2 than their own exclusive games! ;) DO NOT give any comment, if you only have a few games!! you just lamey promotor!! I've see you everywhere in this GS site!! promoting about PS3 & their exclusive games!! but you didn't have any isn't?? am I wrong?? ;) it's LAME dude
PS3 + XBOX 360 = more revenue. More revenue coming in means more quality games. So it's good news all round me thinks.. :D
I'm not surprised. It seems EA has their plump little thumbs in every steaming game-pie nowadays.
I'm a PS3 fanboy but I don't mind they start making games to 360 as well as long as we get them too. Ratchet and Clank stays on the ps2/ps3 if you didn't know that and I hope they don't make a new R&C game, loved the series but not more then 3 games/console. the thing that bugs me is EA, why EA, why not keep working alone? You are the best Insomniac about the 360 I just hope they don't lower any standards or so but the games could just be better right? they said it thereself, "we want to give ourselves more development time to iterate and polish our games. All future Insomniac titles will benefit from longer development cycles, which will directly benefit you, our fans." that's all for me
Everyone complaining about this needs to calm down, and also stop the battle between xbox 360 and ps3, nobody really cares about it, only the little geeks who are on their consoles all the time. I think it's cool that Ratchet and Clank is coming to the xbox 360 as i own one and used to play the games on my ps2.
wonzan: Nearly ALL Ps3 exclusives have been stunning. Haze and Lair say hello! To say that most PS3 exclusives have been high quality is as equally dumb as saying most 360 exclusives have been stunning... people only tend to remember the decent exclusives, the trash and shovelware gets forgotten very easily.
As long as Ratchet and Clank stays exclusive am fine with it, don't see the big deal, Spyro and Crash have been multiplats for a long time.
My heroes go down in flames... I quite don't feel the same about Insomniac Games anymore. EA, whatever dudes, whatever...
I'm a Playstation 3 owner yet I have just as much fun playing on my friends 360 and isn't fun what gamings really all about.
@wonzan sorry mate- you might want to revise your fact finding. The Xenos GPU on the XBOX 360 is superior the RSX on the PS3, whereas the PS3 cell processor is more capable than the 360's triple-core Xenon. The biggest issue that developers have stated, is the fact that the PS3 is harder to program for, due to the cell processor architecture. In all honesty, the hardware is very similar. Although the 360 has a higher fillrate, higher pixel processing power, higher vertex processing power, and better memory architecture, this can be counterbalanced, through smart programming by developers to allow the load to be shared by the more powerful CPU. Take a look at video and screenshot comparisons, and you will see that many earlier multiplatform games look crisper/sharper on the 360. This will (as is) changing though, as more and more developers are utilising the PS3s architecture to it's potential, meaning many new titles are almost identical on both platforms. I think that insomniac has made an excellent move, business and industry wise. The majority of gamers nowdays aren't playing only one console, and it only makes sense to publish titles for all gamers- not a select group.
Nearly ALL Ps3 exclusives have been stunning. The same cannot be said about 360 exclusives. Shouldn't this bury the fanboy drama? Some people wanted to spend less money and get a 360 (which isn't that much worse at all to be honest). Some were more willing to pay for a real next gen console and not a pseudo one (I say pseudo because the 360 still uses DVDs which is just fundamentally backwards and has contributed a lot to the short games of present but otherwise the graphics etc are fine). I hope Insomniac still make exclusives too. By the way, does anyone know if the Crysis 2 lot are going to actually limit the PS3 to 360 graphics or actually juice them up?
gonna blow...Iv'e always loved the ratchet series, Insom was one of my fav developers...alond with Dice and Polyphony
Developer says it is not overly confident due to success of Halo, teases "interesting plans" for Bungie.net.
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