Taito shoots RayStorm HD at North America May 5

you mean "determined by how quickly Microsoft buys them out."
i don't really see too many other publishers doing this. but then again, microsoft doesn't have much going on in first-party game development, so they need to get exclusives by any means necessary. it just sucks that a Japanese company would willingly sacrifice so many sales to a potentially larger portion of fans just to ensure a more immediate profit. it's disappointing.

Because Raystorm is such a major release... Seriously? I mean, don't get me wrong, I played Raystorm on the PS1 and I liked it alot, but I hardly think MS would bother to "buy it out".

lol every exclusive is buyout... sometimes small releases like this its only worth it to release on one platform. hell what do you think 3d dot heroes was, there are exclusives sometimes simply to test if a game is going to be successful.

maybe they didnt want to deal with the game sharing that ps3 has and maybe XBLA is simply a much better platform because it outsells the psn maybe 10x but maybe because development costs/difficulty on the xbox is so much more reasonable.

there are more factors than what sony propaganda would lead you to believe...

There's a lot of shit that goes into that. Maybe the NA release schedule for PSN is filled up? Maybe there's a bug they want to clear up for the US release? Maybe they've having trouble with some dinky piece of localization for it. Maybe SCEA is getting in the way as they so often have with other games?

This isn't "exclusive". It's hitting XBLA a little earlier (likely no more than a week or two given how this has played out before) for reasons that are probably stupid.

You have to be extremely paranoid if you think MS is throwing money at Taito for Raystorm, of all things.

@deepfriedsushi: except this game is already finished on PSN and is coming out in Japan (and possibly Europe/Australia). so the excuse of Xbox being "easier to develop for" doesn't apply here. and i'm not sure where you pulled the "10x more sales on XBLA" figure from, but i'm guessing it came from out of your ass ;)

@Tony: someone at square already tweeted that it's exclusive to XBLA in North America. i don't think Sony would block it's release on PSN. but if you don't want to acknowledge the fact that MS does this all the time (remember Outrun HD?), then i won't try to change your mind.

Even if SE released it for the PS3 in Japan, there might be no conspiracy theory involved. If there must be, then we must also ask ourselves these questions:

How many millions of dollars Sony paid to have FFXIII exclusive to the PS3 in Japan even though SE clearly has a 360 version of the game.
How many millions of dollars did the emperor of Japan pay SE to release Neir (or is it Nier?) Replicant only in Japan and not in the US?

I'm willing to bet that in many of these cases, it's not about exclusivity deals but more about just regular ol' business.

@ laser beams You must be to young or just don't recall the "Buy Outs" that SCEA did with the PS1/PS2. Sony locked out so many games from SEGA's Dream Cast that system was sent to an early grave. It's a game they all play.

Where did you see a price? I agree, 15 bucks is a bit much even though this is one of my favorite shmups ever. I don't think I can wait till it's a deal of the weak.

Why the hell is someone downvoted for saying "why not the PSN!?" when the game is indeed available on the Japanese PSN? It's a perfectly reasonable question. I'm happy for Xbox owners, but as someone who only owns a PS3 at the moment, I'd like to know as well.