Sony is encouraging third-party publishers to adopt its Cross Buy program, which allows customers who buy the PlayStation 3 version of a game to get the Vita version for free. According to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe head Jim Ryan, its up to the publishers -- and not Sony -- to make that decision.
We'll obviously encourage third-parties to adopt it but ultimately whether or not a game includes Cross Buy is a publishing decision and it will be at the third parties' discretion, Ryan told GI.biz. "We'd obviously like to encourage it, whether it's Cross Buy or cross functionality across the two devices. It's like any of these things, the platform holder has a burden of responsibility to blaze a trail and if it works out others will follow."
Ryans comments come just days after EA told IGN it was considering Cross Buy for Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Were taking it under consideration, an EA spokesperson said, but we have no specific plans to announce at this time.
So far, Sony has announced that Cross Buy will be utilized for the releases of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.
While no third party publishers have made announcements about Cross Buy, games that could potentially benefit from the program are Assassins Creed III & Assassins Creed III: Liberation, which launch side-by-side on October 30th, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Black Ops Declassified, which will both launch in November. Weve reached out to both Ubisoft and Activision about the possibility of Cross Buy for those titles and will update this story with any comment we receive.
