The Price Of Exclusivity

Despite a record year for the industry, it’s a fact that making games is getting increasingly expensive. Many companies struggle to cope with the financial risks and one result of this has been that most games get released in every format possible : PS3 ,360, Wii, DS, PSP, PC and Mobiles all get their designated versions so the publisher can keep afloat.
Next month another big budget game is released : "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots" is the last in the Metal Gear series, a series that goes back all the way to 1986. Despite its past successes, Hideo Kojima, creator, producer and director of the series acknowledges that the latest game was the most difficult to make : there were numerous production problems facing his team such as adapting to new and complex hardware, story challenges , high definition issues and a worldwide release. "It took a long time to finish.I even thought about giving up," says Kojima. "But I had to finish it for the fans."
And so he did, at a cost not far off 100 million dollars. Sony somehow managed to persuade the publisher Konami to remain exclusive to the Playstation platform and not release the game in any other format. But with such a high production cost, this exclusivity came at a price. In Japan yesterday, kotaku.com covered the worldwide press launch of the game and discovered that it was not just a press conference to publicize the game:- There was an advertisement for "Regain" energy drink. Old Snake drinks the energy drink and becomes the young Snake of old. "Regain" goes on sale in Japan on June 10th.- A metal MGS4 duck alarm clock will be going on sale at the end of July.- An official MSG4 Sony cell phone with a "MGS4 Salaryman" cell phone game will be on sale shortly.- An in-game MGS4 branded Motorbike from motorcycle maker Triumph... I expect that will be on sale soon..
The sky is the limit it seems : may I suggest Snakes' Tuxedo fashion range, lego models of Metal Gear, a MGS cardboard box, a mobile phone with in-built codec ? Was going to suggest action models, novels and Hollywood films but it seems Konami have already done that!