While both Sony and Playdead have stated multiple times in the past why Limbo was declined for PSN, Sony themselves announce the official reason was due to the company wanting sole ownership of the property instead of developers Playdead.
Playdead offered the game first to Sony which would have included timed exclusive status but talks broke down after Sony made some demands to buy out the rights to the property to become the sole owners. Sony also refused to supply any funds to help market the game if they did not gain rights to the property.
Quote:
Sony Computer Entertainment executive producer Pete Smith revealed the news at U.K. conference Develop last week. He said that Sony was in talks over an exclusivity deal, however things broke down after Playdead refused to give up the IP rights.
“I maybe shouldn’t say this, but we had issues when we were trying to sign Limbo because of the IP,” he said. “There are obvious benefits to keeping [your IP], but also to giving it up: you’re way more likely to get the deal. Remember: 100 percent of nothing is nothing. A publisher is much more likely to commit to marketing and merchandising if they own the IP.”
“Sometimes all we want is protection so [devs] don’t make a game, finish it then go to one of our rivals. We look at IP on a case by case basis. With a bit of common sense, you can find common ground,” he added.
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Playdead ended up rejecting the offer while going to Microsoft who was a lot more willing to help fund the marketing of the game as a key game for their Summer of Arcade promotion on Xbox Live Arcade.
Limbo ended up selling over half a million copies, third best XBLA game of 2010, and the number one selling game during the Summer of Arcade promotion. The PSN version ended up arriving about a year later in the US.
http://www.screwattack.com/news/sony...bo-exclusivity
http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/...ted-ip-rights/
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Daily Recap:
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http://www.screwattack.com/news/batt...appears-origin
http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/new...gin-store.html
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http://www.egmnow.com/articles/news/...uses-revealed/