well. a big reason for so many obscure games on the PS2 was that Sony were the best established platform with a huge headstart over the Xbox. The NGC just didn't get much of a look in from the start.
In 2002 when I was working on a couple of commercial games, despite our efforts it was almost impossible to get publishers interest in the Xbox. Not because it was a bad system. It was because there was such a huge userbase for PS2.
Our games were going to be released on Xbox and PS2 but PS2 had a 75% prority in the deal. In the end Xbox was dropped entirely.
That was a problem from the start for Xbox, being the newbie underdog. It's not quite the same now, and even some japanese developers have been announcing that they are no longer developing exclusively for PS3. Last week 2 PS2 exclusives were announced for 360 too.
I expect this time around, Sony and MS will be on much closer grounds and there will be a lot less to choose between them since both systems have very strong publisher support whilst previously Publshers were only interested in PS2 not caring that developers favoured the xbox hardware and SDK for developing games.
In 2002 when I was working on a couple of commercial games, despite our efforts it was almost impossible to get publishers interest in the Xbox. Not because it was a bad system. It was because there was such a huge userbase for PS2.
Our games were going to be released on Xbox and PS2 but PS2 had a 75% prority in the deal. In the end Xbox was dropped entirely.
That was a problem from the start for Xbox, being the newbie underdog. It's not quite the same now, and even some japanese developers have been announcing that they are no longer developing exclusively for PS3. Last week 2 PS2 exclusives were announced for 360 too.
I expect this time around, Sony and MS will be on much closer grounds and there will be a lot less to choose between them since both systems have very strong publisher support whilst previously Publshers were only interested in PS2 not caring that developers favoured the xbox hardware and SDK for developing games.