Like many of us, I wondered what was going to happen to the Mass Effect trilogy once EA acquired BioWare in late 2007.
Well que up "Another One Bites the Dust," because it appears that a "reliable source" has told Second Story Gamer that the trilogy will in fact be coming to the PS3 after all, with an official announcement at GDC ’09. Basically what it boils down to is that the economy sucks, and EA is losing money. With a multiplatform release, EA stands to make more money from Mass Effect. Of course the spin is (in between chuckling and cigar-chomping) that "more people will get to play this awesome trilogy!" That’s fine and all, but there’s an underlying aspect that I think is more interesting; if the official announcement is made, it would indicate that we will see the Mass Effect Trilogy on the current console cycle.
But with the first Mass Effect being released in 2007 followed by one (one!) measley chunk of downloadable content, I’d imagine that either Mass Effect 2 is pretty far along in development or that BioWare has a ton of work to do in order to finish the trilogy before we start seeing PS4s and XBox 720s or whatever. I’ve heard that there will be a Mass Effect 2 announcement at GDC, so I’m leaning toward it being farther along than we might think. Maybe. We’ll find out for sure March 23rd.
Also according to the news article, PS3 fans looking for their first taste of the glorious cake that is Mass Effect might have their appetites whetted in mid-2009 with a port similar to BioShock’s in 2008.
With PS3 owners losing exclusive games like Devil May Cry 4 and Final Fantasy XIII, and the 360 losing the BioShock exclusivity, fanboys have had lots to be angry about. I’m curious to see how PS3 and 360 fans feel about this, as exclusives become fewer and father between.