Splinter Cell exclusivity explained
Only on Xbox, only for a month
GameSpot reports that Ubi Soft's Splinter Cell is bound to Xbox until the end of the year. Evidently the developer is free to plonk the game onto competing formats (so far namely PC, PS2 and Cube) at the end of 2002, when the deal with Microsoft expires. The PC version of the game is due out on January 31st in Europe.
Although details on the PS2 and Cube versions have been hushed away ever since the game's announcement, Ubi Soft's Tiffany Spencer told GameSpot US "The deal with Microsoft is through the end of the year. After that we are free to develop the game for any other platform we want."
Meanwhile, yesterday's net-based chat with producer Mathieu Ferland revealed that when Xbox Live starts serving up downloadable Splinter Cell extras, "the first level will be free", implying that the second, third, and indeed subsequent levels will not be.