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

[tongue_of_colicab]

I did not read the whole thread but are exclusives a bad thing? No I don't think so.

If a pub/dev/console maker wants to make or pay for an exclusive then why not?

Is it a bad thing for gamers? Well, I don't really think so. In reality there are only few people that have the time and money to play all good games so most people would probably have more than enough great games to play on their console of choice.

Anyway if people would be so concerned about not being able to play everything they should stop buying consoles and play on pc. Problem solved ;')

 

[Prophecy2k]

I did not read the whole thread but are exclusives a bad thing? No I don't think so.

If a pub/dev/console maker wants to make or pay for an exclusive then why not?

Is it a bad thing for gamers? Well, I don't really think so. In reality there are only few people that have the time and money to play all good games so most people would probably have more than enough great games to play on their console of choice.

Anyway if people would be so concerned about not being able to play everything they should stop buying consoles and play on pc. Problem solved ;')

There's quite a few big third party games that don't get a PC release, not to mention consoles exclusives. How's does play on PC solve the problem?

You just wanted to get a shameless plug in there for PC gaming didn't you

 

[pjbliverpool]

But in practice we don't see this anymore. Big budget exclusive games can do things that would make a big budget multiplatform game less commercially viable and marketable in the perception of the risk-averse third party publishers funding the project. That's an increasingly frustrating fact of the modern game industry. And it's becoming even worse.

But that's talking big budget only. There's no reason a game has to be big budget to be either good or original. In fact once the budget is dropped from AAA levels to indie levels then there is considerably more scope for original gameplay concepts from 3rd party games than there is from first party exclusives.

What your effectively saying by making "big budget" a pre-requisite is that first party games are more original than third party games only when you completely ignore the indie market. And even then, I'm not sure you're correct.

 

[pjbliverpool]

There's quite a few big third party games that don't get a PC release, not to mention consoles exclusives. How's does play on PC solve the problem?

You just wanted to get a shameless plug in there for PC gaming didn't you

I think the point there was quite clearly regardless of the number of exclusives available to any single console, there is a far, far, FAR larger games library available to the PC. How many PS4 exclusives are there currently on the PS4? 10? How many games are available on the PC that aren't available on the PS4? 10,000? 100,000? Certainly more anyway.

 

[joker454]

That was no longer true in the PS3 gen, which saw the PS3 turn-around a catastrophic launch and handicapped HW, to eventually sell the same as its closest competitor, due in the most part to its breadth of diverse and high quality exclusive games.

I think it was more due to the fact that early on Xbox 360's quite literally all broke, and later on having to pay for online became more of a factor as the later customers are more cost sensitive than the early customers. Early customers that drop $500 on a console, spend a ton on new controllers, hdd's, and other accessories and buy 10 games a year don't care as much about spending $50/yr for online, whereas the later customer that waited 5 years to buy in at $249 and buys games at $15 most certainly will care.

In principle, yes. But in practice we don't see this anymore. Big budget exclusive games can do things that would make a big budget multiplatform game less commercially viable and marketable in the perception of the risk-averse third party publishers funding the project. That's an increasingly frustrating fact of the modern game industry. And it's becoming even worse.

What you say is affecting exclusive games now as well as they aren't trying new stuff much anymore. Plus given that exclusive games typically sell to a fraction of the available gaming audience makes them even more susceptible to what you are saying compared to multi platform games that sell to the entire gaming audience. Perhaps that wasn't as much of an issue in the past as the financiers (in this case the console makers) were willing to take the losses and risks but not so much anymore. Hence exclusives have now become derivatives, sequels, tweaks to existing formulas and now the new addition of "definitive" remasters.

But that's talking big budget only. There's no reason a game has to be big budget to be either good or original. In fact once the budget is dropped from AAA levels to indie levels then there is considerably more scope for original gameplay concepts from 3rd party games than there is from first party exclusives.

Yup. But remember consoles only get a tiny fraction of what indie games are available, which could be why they don't see the value in indie games as they only get a small subset of them. This seems unlikely to change for the simple reason that anyone can put out an indie game on pc for zero cost and less hassle, something which isn't possible on console as there are more hoops to jump through and more costs involved. Someone had posted on another thread how on the xb1 an indie developer had to spend $3000 just to get the required age rating on a game! That may not sound like a lot, but to an indie it can be a huge deterrent.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How many of the glut of indie titles on PC are actually worth it to most folk though? And that $3000 was for a disc release - downloads don't need age certification. The cost to get a quality title on consoles is still higher than to get it on PC, but you also get a curated experience on console which means the smaller titles meet a minimum quality bar. That's something that works both for and against console gamers (less choice, less dross).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

In principle, yes. But in practice we don't see this anymore. Big budget exclusive games can do things that would make a big budget multiplatform game less commercially viable and marketable in the perception of the risk-averse third party publishers funding the project. That's an increasingly frustrating fact of the modern game industry. And it's becoming even worse.

Except I can't think of a single big budget exclusive that can even come close to matching the things done in a big budget multiplatform. A game like RDR or GTA V completely dwarfs and eclipses what any exclusive tries to do nowadays. Batman and Saints Row aren't far behind. Even Sleeping Dogs is far more ambitious than any exclusive out there.

The only place a big budget exclusive might have a very very very small edge is in graphics. But often that has more to do with the limited scope of the game (30 fps, corridor shooter, limited interactivity, etc.).

And perhaps in storytelling "experiences." But then you get into highly subjective areas where there is no right or wrong. As if the whole thing above weren't subjective to some degree anyway.

Small budget indie titles is where exclusives have a chance to really shine due to their ability to really push the boundaries of what comprises a game. Something no big budget AAA title will ever do. And those frankly are the dominated by PC titles, although they also exist on consoles. Hell, it even appears that with the growing indie scene in Japan, there may now be more indie exclusive titles developed or in development for PC than all exclusives (indie and big budget) for consoles in Japan. Although since many of those titles are actually developed for use in arcade multi-game machines in Japan, it could be considered multiplatform (although it's just a PC in those arcade machines).

Speaking of which...

How many of the glut of indie titles on PC are actually worth it to most folk though? And that $3000 was for a disc release - downloads don't need age certification. The cost to get a quality title on consoles is still higher than to get it on PC, but you also get a curated experience on console which means the smaller titles meet a minimum quality bar. That's something that works both for and against console gamers (less choice, less dross).

It depends just because the budget is small doesn't mean the appeal is necessarily as small. While titles that sell over a million copies like Torchlight II or Minecraft (multiple millions and a miniscule budget) are a small percentage of all indie titles it isn't rare for an indie title to sell hundreds of thousands or millions of copies.

A more interesting question would be how many total indie titles are sold on PC compared to total console titles. The beauty of the indie scene on PC is that since there is little cost to distribution and publishing (just whatever portion of sales goes to Steam, GOG, Desura, etc.) they can sell to very niche audiences and still potentially make a profit. This then opens up games to people who aren't interested in the games with traditional mass market appeal on consoles.

There's no way to quantify that obviously, but I'm pretty sure indie games on PC likely dwarf any other platform except for smartphones. I mean at one point Bejeweled and games like it were selling in the 10's of millions.

And tying all that in to the whole exclusive vs. multiplatform. With both consoles increasingly opening up to allowing indie distribution, even those are moving more and more to be multiplatform. Meaning that even indie games may not be dominated by platform exclusivity in the future. Although the somewhat curated and walled garden nature of consoles means that consoles will never have as many indie titles as an open platform like PC (which is both good and bad).

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And tying all that in to the whole exclusive vs. multiplatform. With both consoles increasingly opening up to allowing indie distribution, even those are moving more and more to be multiplatform. Meaning that even indie games may not be dominated by platform exclusivity in the future. Although the somewhat curated and walled garden nature of consoles means that consoles will never have as many indie titles as an open platform like PC (which is both good and bad).

An alternative take on the indie scene is that consoles are going to get a lot more of the PC games (the 'good ones worth having') along with console-company financed exclusives like That Game Company's efforts on PS3.

For the PC versus console Indie=scene discussion, we'd probably need to enter into a list wars!

 

[joker454]

How many of the glut of indie titles on PC are actually worth it to most folk though? And that $3000 was for a disc release - downloads don't need age certification. The cost to get a quality title on consoles is still higher than to get it on PC, but you also get a curated experience on console which means the smaller titles meet a minimum quality bar. That's something that works both for and against console gamers (less choice, less dross).

See that's the thing though, who determines how to curate it and who determines what is dross and what is epic? I'll give you a real world example by grabbing a post from this forum. In the games forum RenegadeRocks started a thread about a game called Proteus. It seems to be sort of like the Dear Esther game that came out on pc ages ago albeit with more Atari 800 era graphics. Judging by the thread title of his post that game clearly rocked his world. But I ask you, should that game have been culled by the powers that be? Who gets to determine that? On console the dross/not-dross determination is made for you by a handful of people and thus a handful of people determine what your gaming experiences will be, all for the greater good or so we are told. On pc you get it all. As a result yeah there will be some games you and me will find appalling, others that we will find epic, but the more interesting part to me is that our game lists may very well be polar opposites where your dross is my good times and vice versa. So what would you consider Proteus? Because personally I would definitely try it out. I guess my point is that does a curated list even really work when player tastes can vary so much? I like the system that Steam has where people that bought the game can review it, and it shows how many hours they spent on the game in their review which is really nice. So if someone spend 0.5 hours on a game I can disregard their review whereas someone that spend 5+ hours starts to get some credibility. I prefer that to having a group of people somewhere in an office determine what I can and cannot play. Incidentally Proteus as been on Steam for ages in case anyone here wants to try it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

See that's the thing though, who determines how to curate it and who determines what is dross and what is epic?

I agree. It all comes down to whether you trust the console company or not and whether you value their selections. Some people would rather have all the titles and choose for themselves. Others would rather not have to wade through zillions of titles hoping to find a good one. Kinda like having an agent find you a house rather than look yourself, or buying off a used-car lot instead of shopping around independently.

 

[Prophecy2k]

But that's talking big budget only. There's no reason a game has to be big budget to be either good or original. In fact once the budget is dropped from AAA levels to indie levels then there is considerably more scope for original gameplay concepts from 3rd party games than there is from first party exclusives.

What your effectively saying by making "big budget" a pre-requisite is that first party games are more original than third party games only when you completely ignore the indie market. And even then, I'm not sure you're correct.

Once again you miss the point. I'm arguing for the value of exclusives for AAA big budget games, primarily due to their ability to do three things:

a) be more efficient in development, since they have a singular platform focus and can, for a given budget, simply focus on making a game.
b) in broad general terms, are often more original, since they are able to excercise more creative freedom in development, as the publisher's primary intent doesn't solely need to be limited to maximising return on each individually developed first party title; i.e. a first party can be satisfied with break even on an original title, since it helps to broaden the platform library.
c) push the hw more, since the developer can take better advantage of the unique features and peculiarities of the platform since its the only one they have to focus on. This could include things like; making better use of the SPUs on PS3, making better use of unique controller input features on PS4 (e.g. the touchpad, speaker etc).

I'm limiting this argument to big budget AAA games because, for smaller budget indie titles, I actually agree that there's little value in those kinds of games being exclusive, since all that does is limits the number of players that can enjoy the game with little to no other concievable benefit (to gamers anyway, of course there will always be benefits to devs).

 

[Prophecy2k]

I think the point there was quite clearly regardless of the number of exclusives available to any single console, there is a far, far, FAR larger games library available to the PC. How many PS4 exclusives are there currently on the PS4? 10? How many games are available on the PC that aren't available on the PS4? 10,000? 100,000? Certainly more anyway.

I still don't see how going PC lets you play all available games on every other platform.

In the context of what he said it's not a solution for the majority. For someone who isn't into indies or retro gaming, and doesn't care about maxing out graphics options, the PC will not let such a person play all the available games he or she might want to play.

The only existing solution is to own multiple platforms, and that can be an expensive thing to do.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I think it was more due to the fact that early on Xbox 360's quite literally all broke, and later on having to pay for online became more of a factor as the later customers are more cost sensitive than the early customers. Early customers that drop $500 on a console, spend a ton on new controllers, hdd's, and other accessories and buy 10 games a year don't care as much about spending $50/yr for online, whereas the later customer that waited 5 years to buy in at $249 and buys games at $15 most certainly will care.

That's fantasy Joker. Worldwide the PS3 for most of last gen consistent outsold the Xbox 360, despite getting thrashed in the US. How does that have anything to do with the problems with the 360 as a platform? Nope, the PS3 caught up because in Japan the PS3 consistently got exclusive content that pushed it out well ahead of the 360 (which started off pretty wellin Japan iirc). Likewise in Europe the PS3 won out due to it's gaming library and stronger brand (which is in part influenced by its library). There's no evidence at all to support your narrative.

What you say is affecting exclusive games now as well as they aren't trying new stuff much anymore. Plus given that exclusive games typically sell to a fraction of the available gaming audience makes them even more susceptible to what you are saying compared to multi platform games that sell to the entire gaming audience. Perhaps that wasn't as much of an issue in the past as the financiers (in this case the console makers) were willing to take the losses and risks but not so much anymore. Hence exclusives have now become derivatives, sequels, tweaks to existing formulas and now the new addition of "definitive" remasters.

That's not true at all. Rime is a Sony Exclusive. So is Bloodborne. Then there are other exclusive games like Sunset Overdrive, Phatom Dust, the new MS/Platinum games game. These are all titles that look to be going against the grain and taking risks with unconventional genres/settings/gameplay design.

Sure, First Partys also will have to be a bit more cautious with their dev projects, they don't want to lose money at the end of the day. But already we're seeing projects being greenlit by both Sony, MS and Nintendo that third parties wouldn't touch with a bargepole; and not because they couldn't make those games, rather few of them would be prepared to take those kinds of risks since the stakes are higher with thrid parties on those kinds of games, and they have more to lose if things don't work out.

Yup. But remember consoles only get a tiny fraction of what indie games are available, which could be why they don't see the value in indie games as they only get a small subset of them. This seems unlikely to change for the simple reason that anyone can put out an indie game on pc for zero cost and less hassle, something which isn't possible on console as there are more hoops to jump through and more costs involved. Someone had posted on another thread how on the xb1 an indie developer had to spend $3000 just to get the required age rating on a game! That may not sound like a lot, but to an indie it can be a huge deterrent.

Honestly, when it comes to indie games I prefer quality over quantity, and whilst I agree that the console platform holders could to better to get more indie content to their platforms, I think that most if not all of the best indie games worth playing already get a console release, or at least have one planned later on down the line.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Except I can't think of a single big budget exclusive that can even come close to matching the things done in a big budget multiplatform. A game like RDR or GTA V completely dwarfs and eclipses what any exclusive tries to do nowadays.

I covered this in a previous post. Games like RDR and GTA (in particular) are the exception and not the rule when you talk about AAA multiplatform games. GTA V is one of the most expensive, if not most expensive non-MMO game ever produced. Is it really surprsing that a game projected to sell in excess of 35 million units, and thus afforded to dev budget to prove it, does more in terms of scope than the majority of exclusive games that can only sell to a much smaller installed base. It's a bit of silly comparison if you don't take things like scope, budget and reachable audience into play.

Exclusives do well because they have smaller scopes than most of the biggest multiplatform games, and yet graphically, also in terms of production values and often game design and uniqueness they can hold their own. That in my mind is partly what makes them special. And also like I said before, It's nice that I get more exclusives, smaller in scope, in a similar time that I only see one or two GTA games. The shorter dev cycles for exculsives, combined with more limited scope, gives me more frequent additions to the series than I'd get out of GTA games. I love both and appreciate both in equal measure.

Batman and Saints Row aren't far behind. Even Sleeping Dogs is far more ambitious than any exclusive out there.

Can't really agree with this. The batman games, outside of their large play areas, are fairly linear and moderately sized games. They are not doing any more than say the first two InFamous games for example.

Likewise Saint's Row isn't doing much more than say Crackdown for example. Both those examples are no more particularly big nor complex than most AAA exclusives. So I find your logic flawed here.

The only place a big budget exclusive might have a very very very small edge is in graphics. But often that has more to do with the limited scope of the game (30 fps, corridor shooter, limited interactivity, etc.).

And perhaps in storytelling "experiences." But then you get into highly subjective areas where there is no right or wrong. As if the whole thing above weren't subjective to some degree anyway.

Well i'd put this down again to the singular focus on a single platform, streamlining development. It's a legitimate benefit that I believe holds value. But of course not all exclusives are made equal, and for every TLOU or Halo: Reach, you have a Socom 4 or other such < 60 metacritic-scored exclusive that falls well below what even the most middling multiplatform game brings to the table. Overall however, I do see the value of exclusives for the biggest produced games.

 

[Phil]

I used to prefer exclusive games, because I felt that exclusive games went the extra mile to produce even better gaming experiences. That was back during the PS2 and perhaps even part of the PS3 days when the difference between exclusives and 3rd party multiplatform games was bigger. I think part of this was because back then, consoles were quite different in design. On one hand, we had the PS2 with lots of computing power but little complicated memory set-up - on the other, an Xbox with a mighty GPU and lots of unified memory. I think if we compare some of that generations most graphically demanding/impressive games, we will conclude that the advantages and what each brought to the table was quite different.

On the PS2, I always thought that games with immense amount of particle effects (i.e.: Z.O.E.2) were extremely impressive - or MGS2 with art-direction that made it less obvious how much texture variety was missing, but impressed with lots of geometry and interactivity. Xbox games on the contrary just seemed impressive from a largely different direction; very clean image quality and lots of great textures.

When you have two very different platforms with different strengths, it's up to the exclusive games to play to strengths of their console. Multi platform games will always go for the trade-off - the least common denominator, where the easier or more potent platform will usually offer slightly better graphics / more consistent experience.

On the PS3 / X360 - the difference was closer - more because the PS3 had an advantage on the CPU side and the X360 just had a very strong GPU and efficient design. That's why many well developed multi platform titles (i.e.: CoD) were pretty close across both platforms and not that far behind what exclusive titles got out of the machine.

I think on the PS4 / Xbox One, that different has decreased even further, because both consoles are even more similar: PS4 just offeres a bit more than the Xbox One. In that sense, from a technical point of view, I don't think there's much reason to favor exclusive over multi platform games anymore. Perhaps exclusive games will still offer slightly more WOW-factor, but I don't think the different will be as pronounced as back on the PS2/Xbox.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I used to prefer exclusive games, because I felt that exclusive games went the extra mile to produce even better gaming experiences. That was back during the PS2 and perhaps even part of the PS3 days when the difference between exclusives and 3rd party multiplatform games was bigger. I think part of this was because back then, consoles were quite different in design. On one hand, we had the PS2 with lots of computing power but little complicated memory set-up - on the other, an Xbox with a mighty GPU and lots of unified memory. I think if we compare some of that generations most graphically demanding/impressive games, we will conclude that the advantages and what each brought to the table was quite different.

On the PS2, I always thought that games with immense amount of particle effects (i.e.: Z.O.E.2) were extremely impressive - or MGS2 with art-direction that made it less obvious how much texture variety was missing, but impressed with lots of geometry and interactivity. Xbox games on the contrary just seemed impressive from a largely different direction; very clean image quality and lots of great textures.

When you have two very different platforms with different strengths, it's up to the exclusive games to play to strengths of their console. Multi platform games will always go for the trade-off - the least common denominator, where the easier or more potent platform will usually offer slightly better graphics / more consistent experience.

On the PS3 / X360 - the difference was closer - more because the PS3 had an advantage on the CPU side and the X360 just had a very strong GPU and efficient design. That's why many well developed multi platform titles (i.e.: CoD) were pretty close across both platforms and not that far behind what exclusive titles got out of the machine.

I think on the PS4 / Xbox One, that different has decreased even further, because both consoles are even more similar: PS4 just offeres a bit more than the Xbox One. In that sense, from a technical point of view, I don't think there's much reason to favor exclusive over multi platform games anymore. Perhaps exclusive games will still offer slightly more WOW-factor, but I don't think the different will be as pronounced as back on the PS2/Xbox.

Perhaps when the use of compute resources comes more into effect, this will be an area where exclusives really shine on PS4 in comparison to 3rd party games that cannot make use of those resources due to the difficiencies in the XB1 design.

 

[function]

Using compute for graphics should scale with resolution, just as shader based use of the resources does. It'll probably be a smiliar case of doing the same things but at differing resolutions.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Using compute for graphics...

On a compute per pixel level, yes, but compute isn't just about graphics.

 

[eastmen]

If it isn't a timed exclusive i wont be buying it. Seriously, Microsoft are scummy for doing this sort of thing. We're talking about a game that had a prequel that was multiplatform on every console. And its not even a situation where the funding wasnt there and Microsoft picked it up like Nintendo with Bayonetta. SE is funding this title again completely. Microsoft are literally paying SE to not have it come to anywhere except Xbox for no reason than that.

As I already said , tomb raider makes me laugh and so do those who are upset with ms. This is what sony did with the playstation 1. Tomb raider was avalible to all those who had saturns but then sony paid to have the sequal exclusive.


We are going to have to get used to both companies paying to have exclusive content on their platforms. The consoles are both very close to each other like last gen.

 

[Nesh]

As I already said , tomb raider makes me laugh and so do those who are upset with ms. This is what sony did with the playstation 1. Tomb raider was avalible to all those who had saturns but then sony paid to have the sequal exclusive.


We are going to have to get used to both companies paying to have exclusive content on their platforms. The consoles are both very close to each other like last gen.

But back then it made more sense. The PS1 was already dominant and Tomb Raider run better and was already more successful on that platform. The PS4 is similar to the PS1. TR DE was more successful and it run better on the PS4. To top it of, it broke the old console exclusivity tradition for years by making the game available to all platforms which proved fruitful as there was no clear dominant platform.