Sony has earned itself a reputation for landing major, creative indie titles for PSN, but the company has also made its share of missteps. While speaking at Brighton’s Develop conference, SCE executive producer Pete Smith revealed how his company botched a deal to bring one of the most popular downloadable games of all time to PSN first.
During a panel on how to pitch games to publishers, Smith told the audience that Sony was negotiating with developer Playdead to make Limbo a PSN exclusive, but the deal went down in flames when Sony insisted on retaining the rights to the IP. Playdead then took the game to Microsoft, where it went on to sell over half a million copies. The game would eventually come out on PSN a year later.
Although it was a costly mistake for Sony, Smith urged developers to think about giving up IP. “Remember: 100 percent of nothing is nothing,” he told the audience. “A publisher is much more likely to commit to marketing and merchandising if they own the IP.”
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