Epic doesn’t shy away from expensive exclusive deals. In 2020, the EGS spent over $ 400 million on such agreements and the company made heavy losses. But CEO Tim Sweeney sees the whole thing as a sensible investment – and apparently wants to continue in the same way. This is shown by a leaked document that speaks of possible offers to Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo:
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How credible is the leak? And what are the chances that Epic will actually bring Sony and Nintendo games exclusively to the PC? We give you our assessment and of course we asked Epic directly. As soon as we get an answer, we will add it here.
What is in the document?
Where does the leak come from? The major legal process between Epic and Apple recently began. Some documents have come to the public, which contain company secrets of Epic. The information that this article is about should also appear on it.
Offer to Sony: Apparently, Epic has offered $ 200 million to bring four to six first-party games from Sony exclusively to the PC. There has probably not yet been an answer from Sony. It is also not clear whether the amount was offered per game or for the whole package – after all, Epic had the exclusive deal for Borderlands 3 cost themselves $ 150 million.
Conversations with Microsoft: Epic seems to be at least communicating with Microsoft, even if the document makes it clear that an agreement is not in sight. The Game Pass for PC is supposed to be competition for the Epic offer anyway, because both want to offer exclusive games.
No hope on Nintendo: According to the document, Epic has at least thought about making Nintendo an offer for exclusive deals. But nothing was sent because their company history shows that it is hopeless.
What are the chances of getting exclusive deals?
Sony: We generally rate the chances high that Epic will come to an agreement with Sony and market some games exclusively on the PC. After all, Sony wants to strengthen its offer on the PC – Horizon Zero Dawn or Days Gone migrated from consoles to home computers after years.
Editor-in-chief Heiko even believes that the new game Returnal will appear on the PC at some point. But that does not mean that important draft horses like God of War will appear at Epic, it could rather be about porting older games.
Microsoft: Since Microsoft is already launching its own offensive with Game Pass for PC, we consider it very unlikely that Epic will be able to secure exclusive rights. Instead, the publisher’s new games land directly on the company’s own subscription offer.
more on the subject
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Nintendo: The chances are even worse that Epic will bring Nintendo games exclusively to the PC market – according to the document, everyone involved knows this themselves. For Nintendo there are – currently – few reasons to publish important games outside of their own platforms. The Switch in particular benefits from exclusive games, more about the successful console you read from the colleagues at GamePro.
But you don’t have to give up your basic hope for more Nintendo games for PC, a surprising number of games were announced at the last live event.
