Console Exclusives: Are you for or against them & why?

[Clukos]

But the companies making the hardware want to add value to their system! Is that any different with the HTC Vive and Oculus exclusives on PC? What is the point of spending money on designing specific hardware and software and not offer exclusive games for it which almost surely improve ROI? The DVD market is the perfect example of a monopolistic market (before the arrival of Blu-ray/Digital Distribution), the HD DVD/Blu-ray market is the perfect example of a competitive market turned into a monopolistic one. I remember HD DVD and Blu-ray having exclusive deals for their platforms, in fact, out of 500~ HD DVD movies, 91 of them were exclusive to HD DVD. But it turned out HD DVD wasn't competitive enough to survive in the market and it eventually died. If you want to talk in Utopian terms, then yeah, console exclusivity sucks. I just can't see how this idea of console exclusives being made available everywhere can be sustainable for Sony, MS and Nintendo which expect sufficient ROI from the games they fund and not only in net revenue but also the strength of the brand (Playstation, Wii, Xbox etc.) and market recognition/loyalty.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's really a big problem IMO, not diverse (as in special, exotic) enough. Just compare the 10 best PS2 Vs PS4 games. PS2 list is boring: 3 GTAs, 2 Tony Hawks, one madden after so many years of domination? Meh.

Your comparing results from the end of a ten year cycle with a 2 year software library. Look at PS4's titles in 7 years and see how many sequels are there. The presence of high ranking sequels doesn't diminish the quantity of the rest of the library. In fact there are genres that got a better representation on PS2 than they (currently) have on PS4. PS2 had more diversity andmore experimentation (less risk due to enormous install base, so reaching a smaller proportion of the market was still viable), held back mostly by weird hardware. Modern easy to developer for hardware and cross-platform support means game diversity is easier, but PS2 certainly wasn't at a disadvantage.

Not anymore the case.

2nd, 3rd and 4th, I don't think it can be considered circumstantial.

In a library with few games on one machine looking at only the top 4. Now perform a more sensible sampling such as number of games over 80 metascore, and number over 90, and compare first party relevance. Then review this data at the end of this generation. Or, more sanely, look at the libraries of the previous generations and appreciate that this gen is no different.

Sure, I don't deny it...

You said PS2 era wasn't a great era for gaming!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I remember HD DVD and Blu-ray having exclusive deals for their platforms, in fact, out of 500~ HD DVD movies, 91 of them were exclusive to HD DVD. But it turned out HD DVD wasn't competitive enough to survive in the market and it eventually died.

Are you actually suggesting we'd be better off with movie format wars and two competing formats, HDDVD and BRD, and a need for two different players to access all the movies available?

I just can't see how this idea of console exclusives being made available everywhere can be sustainable for Sony, MS and Nintendo which expect sufficient ROI from the games they fund and not only in net revenue but also the strength of the brand (Playstation, Wii, Xbox etc.) and market recognition/loyalty.

Is it Sony exclusives that's driving PS4's incredible sales? Are PS4 owners buying DC and KZ and LoU in droves, or are they buying COD and FIFA and GTA en masse? Are Sony making their record profits from sales of exclusives, or sales of third party titles and hardware and services?

Being the best machine to play the best games is all that matters. If all the machines had all the games, if PS4's exclusives were all available on XB1 and PC, PS4 would still be selling the best because of value and marketing. Possibly selling better because people who want to play Halo and Sunset Overdrive along with Madden and COD could get a PS4 instead of an XB1.

 

[Clukos]

I am not suggesting what'd be better i was just stating facts. More than one platforms means exclusives, meaning that in order to eliminate exclusives you need a single platform, which would be bad for the reasons i stated above. What you hope for is multiple platforms without exclusives, that is a nice idea on paper but not sustainable in the current market.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Viability isn't the question. The question is "what's best?" If you agree that all software on all machines would be the best solution even if it'll never happen*, we'll reach consensus.

* arguable it will happen in the future. Perhaps in 50 years all games will be streamed to any device via the internet. The notion of dedicated machines and gimped libraries will than be laughed at.

 

[Clukos]

Is it Sony exclusives that's driving PS4's incredible sales? Are PS4 owners buying DC and KZ and LoU in droves, or are they buying COD and FIFA and GTA en masse? Are Sony making their record profits from sales of exclusives, or sales of third party titles and hardware and services?

Being the best machine to play the best games is all that matters. If all the machines had all the games, if PS4's exclusives were all available on XB1 and PC, PS4 would still be selling the best because of value and marketing. Possibly selling better because people who want to play Halo and Sunset Overdrive along with Madden and COD could get a PS4 instead of an XB1.

Exclusives certainly drive console sales, but it also depends what target demographic you are targeting. For example, i only bought a Ps4 to play exclusive games, i don't think i'll ever play on Ps4 a multiplat that is also available on PC, because my PC has more capable hardware and i can drive higher spec for said game. I have friends that bought a Ps4 just to play Bloodborne, i also know people that can't afford a gaming PC and get a Ps4 just to play FIFA, GTA V and whatever else. There're many different categories of consumers which are carefully filtered by firms so they can create packages specific for their needs. This is why we have different bundles with different games at different price points.

Now about the other question, in a Utopian universe where everything is perfect and works as you want it to, yes exclusivity of any kind is not good in the short term as you miss out on games you might want to try out. In the current market it's not easy, even if it initially seems like it is; right now, consumers should ask for exclusives, exclusive features and better value because it is better for everyone involved.

 

[iroboto]

Man, lol you guys are making Shifty's keyboard smoke. Fighting several fronts is tough so I'm going add to Shifty's argument here because a lot of his points are being missed.
Shifty has made the following argument: no exclusive content per platform, all games are cross platform. You buy platform specifically based on the hardware, OS, and features you like.
That's all he is saying. Let's not get into this whole debate about how exclusives can get more out of a platform or what not because it's not addressing what his argument is.

Let's look at today's consoles, XBO and PS4. What if there were no exclusives between either, they could fully play each other's games. Users would then decide their purchasing decision on things like controller, game performance, OS, backwards compatibility, Media integration, online integration and whatever else these guys offer.

A lot of arguments I see between platforms always comes down to List Wars, a lot of what I read from fanboys always comes down to console A is dude bro, not enough Japanese games for me, I don't want to play only FPS games.

No exclusive games, no list wars. This is Shifty's "against" argument. This has nothing to do with consoles and quality of titles. This is about shifting the purchasing decision to what the device offers itself.

 

[Clukos]

So... Steam Machines? You want that to replace consoles? Please god no.

 

[Nesh]

Man, lol you guys are making Shifty's keyboard smoke. Fighting several fronts is tough so I'm going add to Shifty's argument here because a lot of his points are being missed.
Shifty has made the following argument: no exclusive content per platform, all games are cross platform. You buy platform specifically based on the hardware, OS, and features you like.
That's all he is saying. Let's not get into this whole debate about how exclusives can get more out of a platform or what not because it's not addressing what his argument is.

Let's look at today's consoles, XBO and PS4. What if there were no exclusives between either, they could fully play each other's games. Users would then decide their purchasing decision on things like controller, game performance, OS, backwards compatibility, Media integration, online integration and whatever else these guys offer.

A lot of arguments I see between platforms always comes down to List Wars, a lot of what I read from fanboys always comes down to console A is dude bro, not enough Japanese games for me, I don't want to play only FPS games.

No exclusive games, no list wars. This is Shifty's "against" argument. This has nothing to do with consoles and quality of titles. This is about shifting the purchasing decision to what the device offers itself.

Would some of the best exclusive games released on each platform have ever been released if they were multiplat?
The games list wars exist because games are the primary reason for console purchase. If all games were multiplatform we would have been getting hardware and feature list wars. Fanboys are fanboys. MS had t o drop their most differentiating feature and focus on the games. Although I dont have actual evidence I suspect that if both consoles had multiplaform games XB1 would have sold even less due to performance and sue to Sony rolling out its non-gaming features much sooner.

 

[iroboto]

It's a utopian view, granted I see that, but that doesn't make it not worth striving towards. I would love to play all the games I'm missing on my Xbox, but I can't.
As for the argument of whether some of the best exclusive games released ever go multiplat: sure look at how gamers benefit from Mass Effect going multiplat. All of Sonys first parties only stay exclusive because Sony says so, as a publisher they keep all the profits of game sales if they opened it up to multiplat. But they lose out on that differentiating point for their platform.

As for Xbox doing worse. Maybe. maybe not. It's clear to me that MS has been striving to get away from being a game producer, they are making moves towards that utopian view by sharing more of its exclusives to PC. I don't think they want to be in the business of making games, they rather be in the business of making software and services. Hence we see a different approach to Sony.

 

[Clukos]

The closer you can get to that right now is owning all consoles and having the option to just pick whatever you like, if you can support it financially it's a no-brainer. Personally i am happy where i am right now with PC and Ps4 and i might pick X1 when they release a slim version since i am familiar with most games on the platform.

 

[iroboto]

The closer you can get to that right now is owning all consoles and having the option to just pick whatever you like, if you can support it financially it's a no-brainer. Personally i am happy where i am right now with PC and Ps4 and i might pick X1 when they release a slim version since i am familiar with most games on the platform.

Yea. Exactly, and you pick which platform you want to play your multiplatform games on as well. It's not quite the utopian view but it's close and costs more upfront money.

If we had the utopian view maybe we would have too many games to play! All gamers would be too poor lol. I can't imagine my current library with an additional whole Sony library as well. Certainly cost me much more than the cost of a ps4 console.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

All of Sonys first parties only stay exclusive because Sony says so, as a publisher they keep all the profits of game sales if they opened it up to multiplat.

More poignant an example here is probably Nintendo. The lack of cross-platform titles on their platform renders it niche. With such a small audience, chances are foregoing platform exclusivity and releasing multiplat would net Nintendo more money than staying exclusive and hoping those exclusives are reason enough for gamers to shell out another few hundred bucks on yet another box of CPU+GPU+RAM+storage. Not to enter into Nintendo's future as a discussion here - only to use them as a highlight of the choices the platform holders have regards their hardware and software operations. At any point they can choose to 'spin off' their software operations, like Sony's movies being independent of their CE plans (in the past), and operate the two in parallel but without particular synergy if that maximises profits.

Let's imagine Nintendo announce both going platform exclusive, to get software revenues from everywhere else, and a new N. console that's significantly more powerful than the PS4 at the same price (no, I don't know how this'd happen either ) and the best platform for the core games, and they actually market it well. There's no reason why they shouldn't make lots of money selling their games on the merit of their games to other platforms, and also sell their awesome console on its merits as a piece of hardware.

Another way of looking at it, I suppose, is that software exclusivity is something of a patch for a mediocre hardware platform. If people don't want your hardware because its awesome, you can always wave the software around as incentive to succumb to this paywall for access.

 

[dobwal]

Exclusivity isn't going anywhere. It might not be tied to hardware in the future but in all likelihood it will transition to service or software based exclusivity model.

You get to buy one box but the sub fees you pay across services will probably be just as expensive as buying multiple consoles like we do today to maintain wide accessibility.

You might even end up with something worse because at least now the high cost of producing a console limits the number of competitors. Look at all the companies that are vying to enter the space today but don't have the appetite to swallow the level of capital investment to do a Sony or MS and instead try to get by with small underwhelming cheap hardware.

Those companies are drooling at the prospect of remote streaming becoming viable. Become a pub, license some outside content, rent some cloud power and viola, you can be a platform owner with exclusive software too.

Remember the old days of TV? Buy a set and you get access to three or four channels with the content being free. Now you got 100s of content providers vying for your dollars and the typical person is paying hundreds of dollars a year for content now.

Wide accessibility in the TV space is more expensive than its ever been. TV basically being a dumb pipe has done nothing to stop that reality. A console being platform agnostic will do nothing to stop it either.

 

[pjbliverpool]

If MS didn't compete or have to compete against Sony and vice versa we wouldn't see the same quality of games most probably.

I don't understand why you think third party development studio's aren't competing with each other.

As for the question "would we still get games like Uncharted and TLOU if there were no platform exclusives?"... well we already have equally good (some would argue better) multiplatform games like The Witcher 3 and GTAV, so I'd have to say the answer to that one is a yes.

Not anymore the case.

2nd, 3rd and 4th, I don't think it can be considered circumstantial.

If you look at the top 20 across all platforms for 2015 there are only 2 PS4 exclusives at positions 3 and 4, positions 1 and 2 are held by multiplatform games. There are a couple of Nintendo exclusives in there (naturally) and 3 PC exclusives at 10, 15 and 19 (despite the PC apparently having no good exclusives). The rest of the top 20 (13 games) are multiplatform.

Take is back to 2014 and the picture is similar, 3 Nintendo exclusives, 3 Sony exclusives (split across all 3 Sony platforms though) and 1 PC exclusive. So again, 13 out of the highest rated 20 games in 2014 including the top position are multi platform - and there is only one PS4 game in that list.

Yet to read this thread anyone would think that PS4 exclusives dominate the market and sit on a pedestal above all other games. It's rubbish.

 

[Clukos]

It's easy if you are a PC only gamer (or a PC biased consumer) to say that console exclusives are pointless. I've seen that quite a few times, that passive aggressive downplaying of games you either don't like or don't care about. One thing you don't mention, and i think you don't even think about, is that not only third parties are competing with each other but also first parties with third parties. I remember after the release of games like Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 last gen people were talking about what is possible on the platform, both technically and content wise, production values and polish. As for Witcher 3, great game, one of my all time favorites but the console release has been messy and not quite at the same standard as first party titles. 8 patches after release and CDPR still can't get the thing to perform as expected many months after release: http://www.gamersyde.com/hqstream_the_witcher_3_wild_hunt_stress_test_1_08-35296_en.html

 

[Shifty Geezer]

pjbliverpool's 'passive aggressive' attitude is in response to the ill-informed arguments saying PC exclusives don't exist and don't match quality of platform exclusives. We have numerical data to contrary as he cites, yet some still hold onto the belief that the best games in the world are the first party platform exclusives. Not to mention he never called console exclusives pointless.

I remember after the release of games like Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 last gen people were talking about what is possible on the platform, both technically and content wise, production values and polish

I dare say a lot of that discussion was fanboy driven and not related to what third parties actually achieve. Typically they didn't include like-for-like comparisons, and third parties making the same game to the same standards would do just as well.

As for Witcher 3, great game, one of my all time favorites but the console release has been messy and not quite at the same standard as first party titles.

If Sony ever made an epic open-world RPG, then you'd have something to compare to. But otherwise the failings of the most ambitious, complex genre hardly point to first party having a better quality standard. Not that I disagree with that point - as publishers, MS and Sony do have high standards - but other publishers have the same concerns and requirement for quality or face lost sales. Publishers who have allowed quality to drop have received negative branding and change up accordingly (we hope!). The same would happen without platform exclusives. EA and Ubi wouldn't get away with releasing bugged software forever. You don't need competition from MS and Sony to ensure these other publishers don't slack off.

 

[Clukos]

I don't know, last few multiplatform releases have left a sour taste in my mouth from BF4 which i bought day 1 w/ premium on PC and it just wouldn't work properly for the first 6 months, to all the horror stories in the current gen consoles of recent high profile games (Assassin's Creed, Witcher 3) to the cringe worthy port of Arkham Knight on PC... I wish that it was just EA and Ubi.

 

[pjbliverpool]

It's easy if you are a PC only gamer (or a PC biased consumer) to say that console exclusives are pointless.

Just to clarify I'm not saying they are pointless (and thanks to Shifty above for pointing that out). In fact I'm quite sure some of them are truly excellent games. If the Uncharted series were on PC for example I'd probably pick them up, ditto for the more recent Halo's and Gears of War games.

I've seen that quite a few times, that passive aggressive downplaying of games you either don't like or don't care about.

What you call downplaying I call attempting to put them back in their proper context. That context being, games that are (often) very good and can on occasion stand side by side with the best Multiplatform titles.

The problem I have is with the "up playing" of console exclusives to make out as though they are somehow fundamentally better than multiplatfom games.

One thing you don't mention, and i think you don't even think about, is that not only third parties are competing with each other but also first parties with third parties. I remember after the release of games like Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 last gen people were talking about what is possible on the platform, both technically and content wise, production values and polish.

There's already fierce competition in the games market, losing a handful of first party studio's wouldn't change that. TBH I find it a bit offensive that you assume third party developers are incapable of producing high quality multi platform games without the influence of first party studio's (and apparently even then they are incapable of matching them). There are plenty of great looking, great playing and great performing multi platform games out there. First party studio's don't have the monopoly on that.

 

[Clukos]

Lot's of "if's" in this thread (and lack of evidence supporting them) I have to say, i am glad none of you are running the games industry right now, I've been enjoying my combo of PC + console for the last two decades now

About the multiplat vs first party thing, i am not talking strictly about the quality of the game or if you like it or not but the polish of the final product when it comes to performance. No matter how good the games is if performance gets in the way of your enjoyment there's a problem. First party exclusives tend to perform better and provide a smoother experience than that of multiplatforms, of course if you want you can find outliers in both cases.