I disagree to some degree. Because the funding for console exclusives isn't solely incentivized by the potential for profit on sales of that game it allows for AAA-level funding to go to games that would otherwise be determined to be too risky or not as lucrative of an investment as creating a game similar to what has already proven to be popular. I believe that there are many games that exist or exist in more fully realized form because platform holders as publishers have different criteria for what is a worthwhile investment than independent publishers do.
Console Exclusives: Are you for or against them & why?
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I disagree to some degree. Because the funding for console exclusives isn't solely incentivized by the potential for profit on sales of that game it allows for AAA-level funding to go to games that would otherwise be determined to be too risky or not as lucrative of an investment as creating a game similar to what has already proven to be popular. I believe that there are many games that exist or exist in more fully realized form because platform holders as publishers have different criteria for what is a worthwhile investment than independent publishers do.
I doubt Uncharted would exists without Sony and PS3. Sony funded ND and wanted an exclusive that showed the power of PS3...without the PS3 there would be no such funding and therefore no Uncharted. Sony (and MS) help fund new ideas...who would have done that in your hypothetical world (ie fund the risk)?
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Deleted member 86764
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The two don't have to be mutually exclusive
Consoles can be both
Very true. Minimum specs for PC since the release of the latest generation of consoles has jumped up.
A games publisher looking for a franchise that can sell 40 million units (Uncharted sold 20 million on just PS3, so scale that up to the wider, non-exclusive gaming market).
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Yeah, my bad!
So next to none then, I mean, put it another way...how many publishers have done this? After all, they can can't they? Surely the market is still there for them...yet there's very little to compare IMHO...even with potential sales bigger than ever there's very little AAA originality outside of console exclusives.
No franchise sells that much unless it's being unoriginal. Uncharted only went on to sell 20 million because it's had three iterations on the original game. We do see original titles tried, like Mirror's Edge and Assassin's Creed. If they work, they get sequels and go gangbusters. If they don't, they get ditched. Same with exclusives. If Uncharted and Killzone didn't sell enough, they'd be axed. Similarly original titles get shelved without having a release because the economies of creating and releasing them are deemed unprofitable. The platform holders aren't particularly different in operations to the independent publishers, perhaps with a little more risk but still running on the same principles of looking to make and sell software that gamers want and pay for. And games that gamers want and pay for will sell on any old platform. If ND had been sold to Ubisoft and UC released cross-platform, do you think all the PS3 buyers wouldn't have bought it? And the XB360 and PC gamers wouldn't have?
Well Uncharted is an interesting case, the Sony console had close ties with Tomb Raider so it's fair to say it would have been 'aimed at that market' - and of course others (format owners) would buy it, so they would have sold more...but then in making Uncharted ND were spending Sonys money - not theirs. There is only so much money to go around, and another factor is Sony/MS want franchises to differenciate they're hardrware - whilst Ubisoft are obviously interested in money 'if it ain't broke why fix it?'. Sure there is investment in new games, but if you take Sony away (from ND) that doesn't mean Ubi would automatically have given them the same level of support...or indeed let them 'remain in control' (to an extent).
Sony only give ND the control and 'freedom' they have because they have proven their financial worth. Other studios that haven't been as lucrative have been closed. Apart from the occasional Last Guardian, there's little difference between the functioning of the platform holders and the independent publishers. If the platform holders didn't exist, the demand for their games would. There'd still be interest in LBP even if Sony wasn't there to back it. Publisher may have turned it down, but then without the platform holders providing that high risk opportunity, there's reasonable chance someone else would have appeared in their place. In my hypothetical generic MSX console world, as well as Ubi and EA and the standard franchise publishers, there'd be some other publishers who took the place of Sony and MS and published those games. LBP would have been published by Team 17, perhaps. Or maybe Rare. EA would have kept in with Bullfrog/Lionhead and published Fable.
Of course Sony will not through good money after bad - but I strongly believe they will take a bigger risk in the current market vs anyone else in your hypothetical one. It could be argued the gaming market only really is as big as it is due to consoles and the likes of Sony pushing for thet 'front room' space - before then gaming was a niche past-time for 'geeks'...Sony make gaming 'cool' and something 'young adults' were allowed to partake in without feeling they would be laughed at.
We do, tons of them.
It isn't, it has a wide selection of them, just as it has a wide selection of most genres.
Why are you equating AAA games to exclusives? There are many more AAA multi platform games than there are AAA exclusives.
Are you suggesting that if consoles didn't exist, people would simply stop wanting "blockbuster" games and the market for them would completely disappear? In fact the market for those games is already very healthy on the PC - not as healthy as on the consoles - but still healthy. If there was no console option then it's pretty obvious that a large portion of todays console games (no not all of them) would be gaming on PC instead and it's certainly possibly (I'd argue highly likely) that the market for those types of games on PC if it were the only high end gaming platform available would be bigger than that of any single console available today. And in that case, especially given the higher profit per sale possible with PC games, I'd say the likes of Uncharted would be entirely possible. In fact I'm not even sure why we're separating Uncharted or TLOU out from the other high end multi platform AAA's that are available these days.
Just because the PC has a wide selection of games it doesn't mean that every selection is the driving force financially. At this moment the core PC gaming audience is either playing strictly multiplayer only games (MMOs, Online Shooters, Mobas) or F2P or both (Hearthstone, League of Legends, Dota 2). I am not saying that there's something wrong with those games, i am actually playing most of these genres myself. Currently i do not see space for high budget AAA single player focused experiences on PC exclusively, because of many reasons:
- Gray area sites selling keys at a lower price point than MSRP
- Piracy, not even arguable, current gen consoles have 0% piracy
- Because consoles do not have grey area sites selling keys day 1 full price sales are guaranteed, meaning higher overall revenue for said game
The current state of the PC market is pretty irrelevant to the discussion. Currently most core gamers are picking consoles for their core games. 1) This doesn't stop the majority of 3rd party titles being cross platform including PC. 2) That doesn't prove that console exclusivity is in any way beneficial. 3) Who's talking about PC exclusivity?! More importantly, if you're EA or Activision wanting to invest in a big budget, single player only game, would you pick platform exclusivity or cross-platform? The money's better cross-platform because the gamers that want your game are gaming on all sorts of platforms and not just one machine. See discussions of exclusives (especially Nintendos) where gamers are wanting a game on their machine.
Probably true but you have to qualify that with the size of that audience. The total audience for MMO's, Online Shooters, Mobas and F2P on PC probably dwarfs the combined console market. So the fact that the AAA market on PC is small in comparison to that isn't necessarily that informative when comparing that market to consoles.
Of course there's no space for that - why would any studio choose to limit themselves to a single platform with a limited audience without some kind of financial incentive? That incentive can only come from 2 sources:
1. If the cost of development/testing/marketing across multiple platforms is greater than the potential revenue from selling to that much larger market.
2. You have an external contributor to your budget, i.e. Sony or Microsoft.
1 is very rare outside of indie titles and 2 is driven by competition between Microsoft and Sony. There's little fundamental about consoles that attracts exclusives other than the money Microsoft and Sony throw at them. If Microsoft decided to throw it's lot behind the PC rather than XBO, you'd no doubt see a similar number of exclusives on the PC as we currently see on the XBO.
Do you have total user numbers for those games?
Would you for the PS4 without the XBO? Or Vice Versa?
Obviously they do. Games do need one platform. The problem: PC is not a platform. PC is an architecture.
And the current platforms (built on that architecture) are PS4 and Xone. Yes, if there was only one of those, things would be much, much better, see PS2 era.
Multiplatform games are released on PC because it is economically viable with the current architecture of consoles. We can just take a look at last gen and how titles like GTA V, RDR and multiple other AAA console only multiplats never made it to PC until they were ported over to the current generation (GTA V for example). Also, it helps that steam is a great platform where third party publishers can release their games without going through the costs of retail packaging (Metal Gear Rising for example). I am not saying PC isn't good right now as a platform in general or that it doesn't have its pros, i am mainly a PC gamer after all i know what works and what doesn't, assuming that if consoles suddenly stopped existing all AAA exclusive titles would be recreated on PC is beyond naive and it doesn't take into consideration the reason for the existence of such franchises in the first place or a myriad other things. Why was Forza created? Just to have a sim-like racing game on Xbox? No! It was created to offer something similar and in some ways better than Gran Turismo which was on Playstation, is there a place on PC for Gran Turismo and Forza together, alongside PCars and Assetto Corsa? I don't think so.
About steam numbers:
Dota 2: http://steamspy.com/app/570 55m~
CS:GO: http://steamspy.com/app/730 16m~
TF2: http://steamspy.com/app/440 30m~
League of Legends has around 70-80m users with almost 30m playing every day at least once
Hearthstone reached 30m users back in May
About steam numbers:
Dota 2: http://steamspy.com/app/570 55m~
CS:GO: http://steamspy.com/app/730 16m~
TF2: http://steamspy.com/app/440 30m~
League of Legends has around 70-80m users with almost 30m playing every day at least once
Hearthstone reached 30m users back in May
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Deleted member 86764
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More than the GTAs, CODs, Halos, Uncharteds, etc. of consoles? I'm not convinced. Especially the financial benefits of those console games.
Yes, financially it makes sense for companies like EA, Sony, R* to keep producing these games. The power of having day 1 full price sales alone without sites selling keys at lower than half the price or piracy is significant. Many of those "free" PC games make money out of monetizing in-game cosmetics like TF2 Hats or Dota 2/League skins, and they don't have to deal with gray area sites because they are technically "free". Potential AAA single player titles on PC face three problems:
- Piracy
- Grey area sites selling at lower price points
- The majority of PC gamers are already invested in various multiplayer games, most of them can afford to wait till the next Steam sale when the game will be heavily discounted
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I think the discussion in current terms is pointless, because nobody here seems to understand what exactly platform is.
Platform (in gamedev) is a stable environment for game development. What people currently call "PC" is not even remotely a platform.
Platform usually has an API, stable performance, known, documented code-paths and so on.
Nothing here applies to "PC", the only stable thing on "PC" is API, where it's performance differs WILDLY between various platform instances, code-paths deviate with driver versions and so on and so forth.
Creating a game for DX11 is a nightmare: what performance you should target? resolution? framerate? optimizations? etc.
Usually in the end it is: let's make a game for the lowest common denominator, and then use a lot of brute-force crap on top (high resolution, AA, post-processing, gimmick effects) to make people with high-end PCs feel good.
The only thing that moves tech for PC architecture right now is the console development, no new stable platforms - no way forward.
Platform (in gamedev) is a stable environment for game development. What people currently call "PC" is not even remotely a platform.
Platform usually has an API, stable performance, known, documented code-paths and so on.
Nothing here applies to "PC", the only stable thing on "PC" is API, where it's performance differs WILDLY between various platform instances, code-paths deviate with driver versions and so on and so forth.
Creating a game for DX11 is a nightmare: what performance you should target? resolution? framerate? optimizations? etc.
Usually in the end it is: let's make a game for the lowest common denominator, and then use a lot of brute-force crap on top (high resolution, AA, post-processing, gimmick effects) to make people with high-end PCs feel good.
The only thing that moves tech for PC architecture right now is the console development, no new stable platforms - no way forward.
