Console-exclusive content is rapidly becoming a new standard for the video game industry. However, the term “exclusive” should probably be taken with a grain of salt, as most of these digital extras end up having releases on other platforms a few months after their release. During the marketing campaign for Ground Zeroes, it was announced that the Sony versions of the espionage title would include the “Deja Vu” extra mission, featuring the Solid Snake model from the PlayStation release of Metal Gear Solid. Where PS3 and PS4 owners could play as one of the legendary “Sons of Big Boss”, those who purchased the Xbox 360 and Xbox One versions could experience the time-bending supernatural “Jamais Vu” mission with Raiden, from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
During this week’s Kojima Productions Podcast, Hideo Kojima revealed that both sets of console-exclusive will release this for the opposite platforms. The Jamais Vu and Deja Vu missions will release on the opposing platforms, both as free content. While the podcast states the release date as May 1, it’s unclear if this will be a worldwide release date, or just for the Japanese versions.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes was a hot topic of controversy at launch, as many fans felt that the $29.99 price was too high to justify the amount of content within the game. During the release window, several media websites and gamers stated that Ground Zeroes could be completed in 10 min. What many failed to mention, was that while its primary purpose was to act as an introduction to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes also includes a plethora of side-missions to grind through for post-game play. The extra DLC missions themselves required a bit of extra effort to unlock, as they can only be accessed after finding all of the XOF patches within the main story mission.
Console-exclusive content is becoming more and more irrelevant outside of a game’s launch window. Ground Zeroes is continuing a trend of “exclusive” content eventually landing on other platforms; other titles guilty of the platform-switch include Watch Dogs (Sony content is available in the PC version), Assassins Creed IV (timed-exclusive), and the infamous DLC character coding found in Street Fighter X Tekken.
If you knew that console-exclusive content would only be “exclusive” at launch, would that still affect which platform you purchased your games for? Leave your thoughts below, and let us know what you think!