At the UK Develop conference last week, Pete Smith, executive producer at Sony Computer Entertainment, revealed that Limbo almost became a Playstation 3 exclusive, however Sony cost themselves the deal by insisting that the developers, Playdead, relinquish the IP rights to Sony. As a result Microsoft ended up gaining timed exclusivity of the game.
Smith Said:
“I maybe shouldn’t say this, but we had issues when we were trying to sign Limbo because of the IP,”
He went on to say:
“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.”
