In an interview with MCVUK, Bandai Namco Europe’s SVP marketing, digital and content Hervé Hoerdt, stated something that will please a lot of PC gamers. While the publisher wants to release its games to the Epic Games Store, it is not interested in any Epic Games Store exclusivity deals.
As Hoerdt said:
“We cannot do everything and Japanese [companies] are not risk averse but we’re going slowly. So we have a full platform strategy. The main focus for us is the consumer and the brand. And for each brand we decide what’s the best way to satisfy the consumer and to engage the widest audience possible. So for instance, I don’t see any point of putting Tekken 7 on Epic Store. Epic is just another store. It’s fantastic, they have a lot of strength and [lots of] users, the business model is attractive to us because it’s more profitable but still, their interest is, if I’m correct, exclusivity. And this is not our vision. We want our content to be available for as many fans as possible. I don’t think we’ll deal with Epic in the short term, while we have this strategy. But of course, if they’re open, we’ll go there.”
So yeah, don’t expect any of Bandai Namco’s games to abandon Steam in favour of the Epic Games Store. As Hoerdt stated, the publisher will start putting its games on that store when Epic Games opens it to everyone.
It’s really interesting – and consumer-friendly – Bandai Namco’s stance regarding the Epic Games Store. In the past few months, we’ve seen numerous publishers abandoning Steam in favour of Epic Games Store. Right now, and as Tim Sweeney has already stated, Epic is looking to sign more and more exclusivity deals. After all, that was the reason why Epic denied selling DARQ after its developer turned down Epic’s offer.
As of now, we don’t know when Epic Games will to open its store to more publishers and developers!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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