Sony Computer Entertainment Europe head Jim Ryan recently spoke to the importance of getting third-parties on board with their recently announced Cross-Buy promotion.
The newly announced deal – which enables gamers who purchase one of the qualifying games for the PS3 to get it digitally on Vita completely free – was a major reveal at Sony’s gamescom press conference.
As of right now, a handful of titles including Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, SuperBot’s PlayStation All-Stars and the new Ratchet & Clank title all will support this promotion. If Sony truly wants to gain traction with the handheld however, they’ll need support from third-parties as well.
“We’ll obviously encourage third-parties to adopt it but ultimately whether or not a game includes Cross-Buy is a publishing decision and it will be at the third parties’ discretion whether or not they want to go down that route,” Ryan told GI International.
He went on to add that they’d “obviously like to encourage it, whether it’s Cross-Buy or cross functionality across the two devices. It’s like any of these things, the platform holder has a burden of responsibility to blaze a trail and if it works out others will follow.”
Of course, by agreeing to the service, publishers lose all the revenue from gamers who would have bought both, making it a tough sell for Sony.
