Unlike PS3, Mortal Kombat on 360 Doesn’t Get Exclusive Character

Mortal Kombat will continue to offer exclusive characters for different formats, but NetherRealm Studios were met with a roadblock upon implementing one in the Xbox 360 version. Everything went fine for the PlayStation 3 edition, where users have access to God of War frontman Kratos, but Executive Producer Ed Boon has revealed that “circumstances didn’t allow us to make a 360 exclusive.”

Speaking to Eurogamer, the Mortal Kombat co-creator said the team planned to add an exclusive character to the Xbox 360 version, but that idea was shot down for undisclosed reasons. “Unfortunately, the circumstances didn’t allow us to make a 360 exclusive,” he said. “I’m not allowed to talk too much about it, but I can tell you we certainly wanted to do an exclusive for 360, but that’s all I can say. It was not a decision we made where we said, ‘Oh, let’s not do one for the 360.'”

Boon hinted that the list of potential characters included anyone involved in “big titles,” such as the Halo and Gears of War games, a statement that backs up previous correspondence between Epic Games and NetherRealm on Twitter last year.

It wouldn’t have been the first time that a Gears of War character appeared in another game. Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago had a cameo in Lost Planet 2. Was it a case of refusal from Microsoft? Kratos will probably pull in a few extra sales for the PS3 version, and the same circumstance would have applied to the 360, so something’s almost certainly amiss.

Microsoft also recently turned down the opportunity for Portal 2 to allow Steam and cross-platform gaming, whereas Sony welcomed the feature.