Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter was quick to explain Titanfall’s exclusivity on his latest edition of Pach-Attack. As it turns out, the logic behind the controversial decision to keep the game on Microsoft’s consoles was constructed by former Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello. According to Pachter, Riccitiello believed that Microsoft would “eat Sony’s lunch” in the then-upcoming console war. As we can see now, the exact opposite situation has developed. At the time of the writing of this article, the PlayStation 4 had sold nearly 6 million units while the Xbox One trailed behind at 3.5 million units.
Pachter also takes the time to state that it wasn’t just Riccitiello who believed that Microsoft would dominate Sony. On the contrary, he says that it’s possible a large majority of people thought Microsoft be able to ride the success of the Xbox 360 into the next-generation. However, once Microsoft revealed their price point of $500 for the Xbox One, the industry hive-mind shifted gears and assumed that it was doomed to do significantly worse than the PlayStation 4. As a result of this misguided gambling, Respawn Entertainment will not be able to release their game to the 82 million PS3 and 6 million PS4 owners.
Ultimately, companies like EA are driven by sales and profits. If they believe for even a moment that they are missing out on an opportunity to make a significant amount of money by releasing on Sony consoles, we can likely expect to see the young Titanfall series lose its exclusivity just in time for the sequel that we all know is coming.