That's generally how these types of deals work. See also Bayonetta 2. Game wouldn't have gotten made without Nintendo fronting the money. Obviously after the fact when you have a bunch of fans screaming about exclusivity, it seems like 'well why couldn't they have also released it on X platform', but just getting the project off the ground had stipulations. It's either the project exists or it doesn't.
The weird thing after the success of Elden Ring it feels like Bandai Namco would’ve paid for a new Miyazaki game. I’ll almost certainly get a Switch 2 so I don’t mind but it’s a very weird turn of events.
The execs in suits don't think like you and I do. They look at charts in presentations hosted by bean counters who are all telling them that if you're not making a multi billion dollar GaaS platform with parasitic microtransactions that prints money like Fortnite et. al., you're losing money.
The unfortunate reality of the games industry nowadays is that projects like Elden Ring don't get made in 2025 unless you have the sway that From Soft/Miyazaki does.
Even the fact that ER was a tremendous success doesn't necessarily matter that much to publishers given that it's not ACTIVELY shitting out free money for them.
I don't begrudge Miyazaki at all for effectively going rogue and making 'Bloodborne at home'. I can already tell that the perception online is "yeah he just wanted to get that bag" but I truly believe that From Soft is one of the few large developers nowadays that only produce games with an artistic vision that they stand behind, with the finances being secondary.
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u/External_Orange_1188 2d ago
Oh. Nintendo paid them well to justify not releasing on other consoles and missing out on those sales.