Namco Bandai's Beautiful Katamari

In hindsight, we should have seen it coming. First, Namco Bandai announced that Ridge Racer 6 as an Xbox 360-exclusive launch title for 2005. We didn't think too much of it, because even though Ridge Racer games had been closely associated with the debuts of various Sony machines (PS1, PS2 and PSP, for example) the Playstation 3 wasn't due in stores for another year. For that reason, it made perfect business sense that Namco would seek to hoover up some of Microsoft's co-marketing dollars in exchange for the bragging rights Microsoft would derive from having a Ridge Racer game debut on the 360. So when Ridge Racer 7 was announced exclusively for the Playstation 3's launch, it served to confirm our belief that Namco had only engaged in a mercenary flirtation with Microsoft, only to return to the warm embrace of its first love, Sony. After all, how could Xbox 360's anemic performance in Japan sway local developers to turn their attention away from the hometown console?

In the months that followed, however, there were signs that Namco's brief fling with Microsoft was becoming a simmering flame. Eternal Sonata, a Japanese role-playing game of the sort that the first Xbox had desperately lacked, was announced only for the Xbox 360. Then the sixth installment of another franchise that had long been Playstation-only--Ace Combat--was introduced as a 360 exclusive. Ditto for Pac-Man Championship Edition for Xbox Live Arcade. Still, we ignored the signs.

But when a little birdie with good reason to know--and to gloat--informed us that the We Love Katamari sequel, Beautiful Katamari, would join the ranks of Xbox 360 exclusive titles, the pattern was impossible to deny. We've since confirmed that an exclusivity deal between Namco and Microsoft is very close to fruition, likely to be announced at the E3 Media and Business Summit in July. Namco is enjoying the warm embrace and ever-deepening ties with Microsoft, while Microsoft sees this as an opportunity to change the perception of Xbox 360 as the barracks for bald space marines and little else.

This doesn't spell the end of the world for the PS3; after all, none of these games will single-handedly turn this generation over to Microsoft, and each is all but certain to make its way to the PS3--eventually. But it demonstrates the impact that the continued weak PS3 sales are having on the strength of the platform: the installed base disparity between Xbox 360 and PS3 means that Sony isn't strong enough--or willing enough to reach into its pockets--to hold on to the types of games and franchises that belonged to it alone during the PS2 era. It shows that Microsoft's aggressive courting of Japanese publishers is having an effect. And if Microsoft's relentless wheeling-and-dealing and Sony's shockingly poor sales remain the same, one of Sony's key advantages of yesteryear--that its machines were the only choice for the gamer who wants to play just about everything--will vanish into thin air.