During Epic Games’ keynote at Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Quantic Dream announced that its former PlayStation exclusives adventure games Detroit: Become Human, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls are coming to PC.
Yeah, it's really nice all the support the PC platform has been getting in recent years. It's just too big of a platform to ignore and it's kind of a neutral ground for publishers where they can earn some more money from their properties while still maintaining exclusivity in the console realm.
They only have one ball (heavy rain). The other two balls they playin with are sonys. This is a good thing though and hopefully this will make Sony think about releasing more of their first and second party content onto the PC, this may even be a test for all we know.
Kind of surprised because I thought Sony owned the IP's since that's their typical way of publishing games they finance. I guess QD brought back the rights.
Good for PC players, as two of those are good games, and the third is half decent in it's own way.
Not that surprised people actually want to play these movies, ehm, games now...
I'm happy for QD for one, since this move will bring more cash in and that means more games of that type, I frickin loved all of their games, especially Detroit.
Heavy Rain and Detroit are both excellent games but Beyond Two Souls is not. PC community is going to of course get a hold of that Ellen Page nudity and run with it LOL
@mystogan
Assuming Sony as a publisher is not a typo, maybe Sony is testing the water since the fee on Epic store is quite low. The sales of those titles has already passed the climax and only a very little growth now.
And why QD games? Maybe genre-wise, QD games are unique, it's rare to see this genre with AAA calibre. If this becomes a habit, we might see titles like Little Big Planet, Dreams, etc coming to PC as well.
For what? Maximizing profit of course. Epic is probably offering them a huge money they can't refuse. Tencent, just like other chinese companies, love to disrupt the market. Everybody wins, since QD's games, while they sell well, they're not on par with other flagships , Uncharted & God of War for example.
Sony probably doesnt wholly own Quantic dreams IPs. Quantic dreams have invested so much into motion capture and staff that can get the appropriate cast for their particular types of games that it be insane to let sony completely own the ip. Yea sony usually owns what they publish but theres always a unique case.
But now with Netease becoming a minority investor they probably made a deal with sony to publish on PC particularly the Chinese market and epic stores low cost to bring in some extra revenue on titles that have ran there course on the console that they eont wholly own
That's kind of a low blow towards Sony by Cage considering that Sony helped make them a bigger name in gaming. He could have announced this without the passive aggressive jab at Sony. I understand that he wants to promote his games, and the new partnerships he made, but one should't do that by burning bridges, because it's quite possible that Sony may wish to fund his games in the future, and he'd be silly to refuse that chance, because it's not like he'll always have funding for every project he wants to do.
I'm not really understanding how that is a low blow to Sony? He's basically (literally) saying you don't need a Playstation to play those games as they're now on PC. How is that a knock against Sony.
This is why I'm laughing at the comments, people pulling their hair out over a tweet that isn't even in malice. Especially after years of being told how great QD and Sony's relationship was.
"it's quite possible that Sony may wish to fund his games in the future, and he'd be silly to refuse that chance, because it's not like he'll always have funding for every project he wants to do."
Didn't a billion dollar Chinese company NetEase just buy a major share of this company? I'm sure they have all the funding they need for their games now.
all I can say is WOW! these games aren't really selling THAT much anymore and have done their part pushing the PS4 sales. so I think this is Sony double dipping on sales. hopefully, no more PC gamers trash talking about "movie games" on PS4 now that they are coming to the PC too.
Nothing remotely new either. I mean Sony had their hands in pc gaming for quite some time going back to Everquest. Wouldnt be the least surprised if they choose to do a little more in that arena being that eventually thats the direction things will eventually head
I was thinking the same. Why would Sony want to release these exclusives EXCLUSIVELY on Epic Store? They gain something from f***** over Steam? I mean, the sales number would be considerably higher on Steam...
You need to rephrase your statement. It’s not exclusive it’s former exclusive. They are on pc now and by the fanboy definition that makes them multiplats.
***Trademarks aren't rights to an IP. For Sony to own those IPs they would have to copyright the artistic work (story, characters, music...) and code of the game. Trademarks only protect names or logos.***
Please learn stuff that can be easily found on Wikipedia before saying things like this.
"A trademark identifies the brand owner of a particular product or service."
"They are on pc now and by the fanboy definition that makes them multiplats"
Not fanboy definition but common sense and logical thinking makes them multiplats, maybe console exclusives at best. Just like 99% of xbox 1 games which are multiplats/ console exclusives.
But this doesn't impact playstation that much because it has loads of true exclusives from first, second and third parties left.
Sony owns Beyond Two Souls and Detroit Become Human, while they funded and published Heavy Rain that's why you see these coming only on PC and not xbox.
I'm not sure if that's entirely true. Sony did publish those games but I don't think Sony actually owns those IP's you mentioned. And this does make sense that they're games would be coming to other platforms just like they recently said when they got a huge investment by another company NetEase (i believe)
This isn't anything new. The same thing is happening for Death Stranding... The game is published and funded on PS4 but will also release on PC some time after The PS4 release independently. And the new developments, it seems Kojima might put it not just on Epic Store but Stadia as well because he was super excited about that platform when it was unveiled yesterday.
@below individuals: Sony also published Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon yet they held and hold no rights to either IP. Just because Sony publishes does not mean they have 100% control of the IPs or even those titles.
Sony published Spyro and Crash before, yes. But Crash and Spyro were never owned by Sony. It was owned by Universal Interactive Studios before. Later Activision bought Crash IP.
He didn't just say Sony published these, he also said they owned two of the ips, and help fund the first, while funding or publishing itself does not determine anything , ownership does, and Sony do own both Detroit and beyond, so nothing like crash or spyro at all, you could argue heavy rain I suppose but I'd say Sony at least in part own something of it, they did fund the game after all, usually that means something. However the deal was done this is a good thing, more people get to play 3 really good games.
Trademarks aren't rights to an IP. For Sony to own those IPs they would have to copyright the artistic work (story, characters, music...) and code of the game. Trademarks only protect names or logos.
Hmmmmm, is there a difference between owning trademarks and owning the IPs?
I don't know...with the tweet David Cage just put out, it doesn't really sound like something Sony would have done on their own.
.....
Publishing rights and owning IP are two different things.
Just check the Justia Trademarks again. Who owns a Heavy Rain, yet who is publisher, but who own a Detroit and Beyond and who published them. You'll see the difference.
Universal Studio Owned Crash IP before, publisher was Sony, yet "Crash Trademark" was sold to Activision by Universal Interactive Studio.
If Sony still owns the IP, it doesn't mean they couldn't license it out, or even sell it back if they so wished. It's not overly common, as it costs money for the developers or the publishers who want to put it on other platforms, but it certainly not unheard of. If they felt those franchises weren't relevant to promoting their brand, it might make sense to make some extra money off doing such a thing. That isn't common for them at all, but until it becomes a regular thing, and Sony starts saying they're all for PC, I wouldn't read too much into it.
@Iamalwaysright
Owning the trademark is the same as owning the IP.
Quick google search
"Trademarks protect the intellectual property and use of a specific idea or symbol, and can be very useful for a business or person with a distinct brand."
Even if QD happens to own the content, which is unlikely given how Sony structures it's contracts for such things, Sony has the ultimate say on what can be done with it. They have the ability to sell it, trade it, use it for their own ends, etc. Even QD can't do anything with that content without Sony's permission based on trademark law....at least not without facing legal repurcussions.
Trademark is just the way one protects one's ownership of an intellectual property from being used by another party. One can own an IP without a trademark. One can not trademark a property they don't own.
Is it really that hard to believe that Sony owns the IP's in question, and QD got permission to use it? Or paid to use it in this way? It's not really that strange, other than we don't see it that often from Sony published games.
Silly or not it wouldn't be the 1st time and won't be the last time that a company or someone has the rights to a name and/or logo and not have the copyrights of the products/services themselves.
@ gangsta_red
You can find detailed information here https://www.wipo.int/wipo_m... but basically trademarks protect names, expressions or logos while copyrights protect everything that makes a game a game from music to code, art, story, characters...
"IP is the lifeblood of the industry. IP rights are associated both with the tools used to develop games and the content included in a game. For example, copyright safeguards the creative and artistic expression that goes into the software (the code), the artwork and the sound (and music) of a game."
"What developers own is IP; what they sell (through licensing deals) is IP. In fact, all they have is IP, so they need to protect it."
Copyrights protect IPs
"Trademarks protect the names and logos associated with a game and its characters and can be used to set a company and its games apart from others in the minds of consumers"
Tradermarks protect names.
If you make a game and only file for a trademark that protects whatever name you gave it and don't protect it with copyrights I can legally sell your game under a different name. Trademarks do NOT protect IPs and aren't proof that a company owns an IP. The ones that copyright the IP, own it.
Ok that's good knowledge, and a fair argument, if Sony were not given its dues on the epic store then you may even have a point, but as it relates to these games, Sony own 2 as another user pointed out.
Sony is following MS lead and releasing their Ips on PC. The market to be able
to play on the platform you want is too enticing for them to ignore. Once again it has been proven that these companies really just care about their bottom line and not some silly console war
Has Sony not published games before on PC krib? Is this their first? How are they following ms lead when they have been on PC for years? They even had a pc centric dev team didn't they? Sony releasing on PC is nothing new or startling and it's a continuation of what they have done in the past. Sony are not looking to copy ms in anything, they already have the most popular console, with some of the best exclusives you can buy, and a working streaming service, that also happens to be the most popular streaming service for games so far... what exactly do they need to or want to follow ms on again?
Bwahahaha get in there. More PC goodness.
Great treat for you pc players enjoy
Sony keeps supporting the Epic Games store. For sure they got payed some money for it!