I thought Link version of SC2 sold the most and i heard Sony paid for SC3 exclusive.
As of 2005, I believe the PS2 and GC sales were equal (and ~300K ahead of the Xbox). While I don't know how many sales they've had since then, that puts it a good year-and-a-half past launch, so I don't expect too much nor too much extra profits since it would have hit budget prices by then.
While the "gangbusters" comment is right out, I think the "paid exclusivity" comment is equally baseless as well. There's never any real way to tell without official announcements (as if that happens often), and in the meanwhile I don't see much reason to discount Namco's official comments. SC3 was indeed ramping up the coding difficulty, and porting to two other platforms would likely have added a long time to the process, pushing back the launch and--more importantly--keeping the team from moving on to their NEXT-gen Soul Calibur, which I'm sure at the time the considered more important.
SC3 would still be a good experiment, though, and see just how the players respond to the features they were adding and determine how the best way to make SC4 would be. And they still had every reason to expect it would sell better on the PS2, as:
- SC2 on the Cube was one of the only fighting games of that type--and really the only one of stature--and the higher-than-expected would be expected to drop as many of the GC owners would be sated. Or at least not be as hungry.
- There are plenty of multiple-console owners out there, and they would be more likely to pick up the better versions for the GC and Xbox, but if there was no choice in the matter, they'd simply fall back on their PS2.
- Overall, their fighting game audience was much more prevalent on the PS2 due to the presence of so many other games and notable brands--and the exclusive presence of some of the most trusted and popular series.
More reasons could be piled on, but I think that's enough to explain why they assumed the PS2 would bring in the most profit.
Add that to it being the easiest for them to program for and with all likelihood wanting to get SC3 out quick to move onto their next-gen iteration...
Of course I could easily be wrong about all that and Sony DID work out some deal (issa complex work out there), but overall that's why I don't think it's necessary to look that way just on random rumor.
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Now of course SC3 did NOT sell as well (I'm not sure of its' numbers, but it started selling at around 10 and dropped slowly over the next few months while PS2 SC2 started higher (like, #4) and stayed longer, if I remember correctly), but I hardly blame that on platform choice. I think it was still respectable, but not what they were hoping for.
A) Fighting games themselves have been on the decline.
B) They were following up a strong-ass game like Soul Calibur II way too quickly--for fighting games in general and ESPECIALLY in relation to the series itself.
C) It didn't receive the marketing blitz SC2 did. (Though it was not poorly marketed by any stretch.)
D) There was no arcade game out previously to get the hardcore fighting gamers excited, or keep up the visual presence that would make them eventually give in and buy the game.
E) The game--to my understanding--is buggier than SC2, which tends to draw down the hardcore audience.
Personally I think Namco should have branded it differently--say, call it "Soul Calibur Universe" and really push the "overworld" action, different game modes, and customizability--so as to not make gamers think it was as fully-fledged a follow-up as SC1 was to Soul Edge and SC2 was to SC1. Raising expectations, frustrating folks who expect multi-platform excitement... gamers crave not these things. Save the "Soul Calibur 3" name for their truly next-gen version. As it stands, they've diluted the franchise somewhat and confused their loyalists, who tend to be easy to fool and with even just a different name would have been much more happy with SC3 as "experiment" than SC3 as "follow-up... but not for everybody!" Heh...
None of this is to say that SC3 is a bad game, of course. Because it isn't by any stretch of the imagination. ^_^
--cough-- This IS one helluva tangent in reply to one random line in a post, though. My bad...
Can anyone tell I like fighting games? Hehe.
Games that have never been exclusives? What are these major exclusives because I ve missed them
