Sony had never done one before he noted, so this was a ‘tech test’ for their infrastructure. EA didn’t market the game but digital hit double-digit percentage.
”Sony had never done a day and day release,” said EA’s Riccitiello. ”They were very cautious about their infrastructure so it was mostly a technology test.” The publisher did ”absolutely nothing” to market the PS3 version of the BioWare hit RPG.
Despite that it sold solid numbers with the digital version reaching a double-digit percentage of the total sales for PS3 Mass Effect 2. That figure was ”meaningful” said Riccitiello, while avoiding to give any specific numbers.
”This was really more about proving it can be done than it was proving what the opportunity would be,” he added. ”So an unmarketed game one year after the original was done on the Xbox and the PC, we released the PS3 and managed to do very, very well with it.”
Price differences between Microsoft and Sony keep EA from exploring more ‘day and day’ releases for their titles. US PSN offers under a dozen full digit titles whereas Xbox Live’s Games on Demand has a catalogue packed with over 200.
”They have got to manage both selling boxes at retail, and it’s generally a pretty thin margin business,” he said. ”And so they basically negotiate and leverage shelf space on the promise of making retail margin on software.”
Have you bought Mass Effect 2 for PS3? Dragon Age II releases this week for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC with Mass Effect 3 due out on all platforms later in the year.