The Exclusive Games Report: April 2008

Written by John Scalzo  on April 29, 2008

Special: The movers and shakers of this month's exclusive games.

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Arguing over which console has the most exclusive titles has almost become a game of its own for fans of the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 (a game on the PC and one of the consoles still counts as an "exclusive" to that console). But the fact of the matter is that which console has the most exclusives was settled a long time ago (hint: the Wii won, in a landslide). But keeping track of which games are exclusive to which console is still an interesting topic for discussion and so, The Exclusive Games Report was born.

PlayStation 3
The only exclusive title released for the PlayStation 3 in the month of April is the next-gen driving simulator Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Dubbed "a taste" of Gran Turismo 5 by Sony (the full version isn't coming until 2009 at the earliest), many gamers that are not already fans of the series have balked at the game's $40 price tag. But that hasn't stopped critics from keeping the game's score in the low 80s on MetaCritic.



It looks like Namco Bandai is trying to replicate the success Ubisoft had with the Xbox 360-exclusive Naruto: Rise of a Ninja as they announced that Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm would be a PS3 exclusive this month. The Ultimate Ninja series has garnered quite the reputation among Naruto fans, so the first game in the series on the PS3 might just turn a few heads.

Speaking of Ubisoft, it appears the company has finally locked down a release date for the on-again, off-again PS3 exclusive Haze. The game will be released on May 20 with a multiplayer demo hitting the PlayStation Network a few weeks earlier. It's an old joke, but now the question it whether Haze will stay exclusive or not. And since it's being published by Ubisoft, my money would be on no.

Wii
The Wii received the biggest crop of new exclusive titles in April with the latest iteration of Mario Kart, Mario Kart Wii, leading the way (and it's only four days away!). The other five titles range from Majesco's answer to Afrika in Wild Earth: African Safari to another music game in Battle of the Bands to a budget flying game in MiniCopter: Adventure Flight to a light gun shooter from Konami in Target: Terror to Emergency Mayhem, a game that probably could have been called Crazy Ambulance.

Four new exclusive games will eventually be making their way to the Wii in the future and none have made a certain subset of gamers happier than Sam & Max: Season One. Somebody will make the point-and-click adventure work on the Wii and if the reaction to the PC release is any indication the people at TellTale Games might be the ones to do it.

Short confirmations that two sequels are on the way to the Wii were also revealed this month. Mario Super Sluggers (at a Nintendo press event) and Elebits 2 (in a British video game magazine) were announced with few other details.

But one game that did make a big splash with lots of details is High Voltage Software's The Conduit. High Voltage is not exactly known for their stellar development reputation, but the company has been quietly working on the Quantum 3 engine for quite a while now. The Quantum 3 purports to bring PS3/Xbox 360-level graphics to the Wii and after it was revealed in an IGN special feature, publishers have been beating a path to High Voltage's door. The company also plans to license their engine to other developers who want to do more with the Wii.

Finally, it looks like some progress is being made on the Wii's long-in-development noirish action game Sadness. Nibris, the developer, has announced that they have licensed the Gamebryo engine for use in the game's development and even released what they swear is an in-game screenshot. While it's not much, the race to see which one will be released first between Sadness and Duke Nukem Forever just got a little more interesting.

Xbox 360
Little news on the exclusive front was revealed on the Xbox 360 side of the console war in April. While it's not official yet, BioWare has very strongly hinted that Mass Effect 2 is only in development on the Xbox 360 and PC. While that does not completely rule out a PS3 release, it effectively makes it Xbox 360-exclusive for right now.