Fanboys Whine Over Nothing

This past week, a very vocal group of Sony fanboys created another one of those meaningless Internet petitions games to boycott Capcom games, due to the fact that Capcom has decided to make Devil May Cry 4 into a multi-platform game for the Xbox360 as well. Now, I could understand gamers' frustrations if their favorite series moved to a different platform and remained exclusive for that new system, but this is obviously not the case. If you bought a PS3, you can still enjoy this game. But this console war seems to go beyond the normal rivalry of the "my team's better than your team" mentality. Fanboys are taking stances more akin to crazy, religion fanatics who no longer use reason and refuse compromise.

The fact remains that Devil May Cry 4 will still come to the PS3. In addition, there has been no indication that this will be a timed exclusive (like Virtua Fighter 5), where one version is released earlier, or will offer less features (a la GTA IV). In the end, it comes down to simple economics. At this early point in the PS3's lifecylce, a game like Grand Theft Auto IV cannot hope to sell enough copies to remain exclusive to one platform. With skyrocketing next-gen development costs reaching $20 million, the risk becomes great. By releasing their games on multiple platforms, third party-developers can lessen the burden.

As for me, I'm just excited that all these great, previously PlayStation-only IPs are coming to the Xbox360. All I need now are for Kojima (Metal Gear Solid 4) and Square-Enix (Final Fantasy XIII) to make the jump to multi-platform developer status, then I might not even need to get a PS3.

Capcom Responds to Fanboy Petition.. (see Christian Svensson's post)

Btw, here's a list of recently announced games that were originally PlayStation properties that are heading to both platforms (PS3 and Xbox360) in the near future:

- Grand Theft Auto IV (next-gen GTA)
- Assassin's Creed (next-gen Price of Persia?)
- Resident Evil 5 (where's the Wii-love?)
- Devil May Cry 4
- Beautiful Katamari (coming to all major platforms)
- Ace Combat 6 (right now, only Xbox360)
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Guitar Hero II (also coming to Wii)
- Virtua Fighter 5 (timed exclusive)
- Mercenaries 2