Splinter Cell Conviction: Exclusivity Lacks Heart not Head

Ubisoft was trying to fob Splinter Cell Conviction's Xbox 360 exclusivity as a "link of the heart" and a development-driven decision. Now, however, Steven Masters (lead designer on the game) has a different story to tell.

According to Masters it's less heart and more wallet, "Well that's purely a business decision. That's it."

He continued, Ubisoft as a company now has a lot of experience with PS3. Our processes, tools, techniques are very well-developed - we could absolutely execute on the PS3 if we had the opportunity, but like I said it was a business decision."

The previous line from Ubisoft (presented in a Q&A on its forums) went like this: "First of all, Splinter Cell games are historically linked with Microsoft platforms. The first Splinter Cell on the original Xbox was one of the first games to fully exploit the console’s technical possibilities. At that time, Microsoft really believed in the game potential and provided strong support to promote it. So, there is a 'link of heart' between the franchise and the platform...

"The second reason behind this choice is purely linked to production. Having a single target platform means that we can optimize the game even further, because we only have one type of - console - hardware to support."

You're left to wonder whether any money changed hands between Microsoft and Ubisoft?

^{Source: Kikizo interview.}