Namco Bandai has revealed that it was paid by Microsoft to keep Tales of Vesperia out of the hands of Western PlayStation 3 gamers.

The JRPG came first to Xbox 360 and made a late, expanded appearance on PlayStation 3 in Japan – and it would’ve gotten away with a Western PS3 release too if it weren’t for those meddling kids at Microsoft.

In response to a fan’s Facebook enquiry, Namco Bandai community manager Charlotte Toci said, “Microsoft paid for the exclusivity the same way Sony paid for having Heavy Rain only on PS3.”

“It's just one way the business works, sadly.

“Those decisions are made really high up y'know, we do try and give them the max of fan feedback, but sometimes it's just out of our hands.”

As Toci points out, it's standard practice to compensate publishers and developers for platform exclusivity. However it's unusual for a game that exists on multiple platforms in one region to be platform-exclusive in another.