Sony has today pulled a shocking coup, using its clout as the owner of the original Ghostbusters movie license to negotiate a cheeky last minute deal with Atari and turn the Ghostbusters game into a timed PlayStation exclusive. Wii and Xbox 360 owners will now have to wait even longer for the much delayed game, while PS2 and PS3 owners can get their hands on it in June.
“We will be releasing the title on June 19th, for PS3 and PS2, to co-incide with the release of the Blu-ray movie from Sony Pictures,” said a Sony rep this morning. With Sony owning the rights to the film, we really should have seen this coming. So far, this all concerns the European release, but Sony is surely looking to make this a worldwide situation.
It was believed that Sony had acquired sole publishing rights, which would pretty much kill any chance of the game releasing on other platforms. However, it has since become apparent that Atari is still publishing, with other platforms getting Ghostbusters “later this year.” Only PlayStation owners will be able to enjoy the game’s 25th Anniversary release.
I imagine Sony’s lawyers are giving each other golf claps over this one.
[Update: Check out our story here for a clarification. Apparently Sony is publishing the game in Europe, where it will be a PlayStation exclusive. PAL gamers just got raped. Hard.]
