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

[function]

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

No sign of anyone using compute for anything but graphics yet. And with the "multiple frames of latency" talk going round about getting compute results back to the CPU in current generation console APUs, that might not change significantly over the course of this generation.

For multiplayer games, syncing complex game-critical simulation using domestic upload speeds would be both tricky and latency adding too.

Best off putting that stuff in the cloud...

 

[Billy Idol]

MS move shows it once more...exclusives are the most important games for consoles.

No one buys a X1. But with Insomniacs game (reason I bought one) and now TR...people will buy it.

 

[dumbo11]

MSs presser isn't until tomorrow.

You might want to check your calendar .

 

[orangpelupa]

Nah. As long as they did not have JRPG and ace combat, i wont buy x1
PS4 also did not have those but they have SONY, and i believe in SONY when thinking about releasing weird games

 

[DJ12]

You might want to check your calendar .

That's just it I did lol gamespot say watch the conference live at 1am pdt 13/8. Maybe I miss read it lol

 

[Cjail]

Never mind.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

MOD : Let's drop the people's reaction discussion now. Suffice to say the internet shows plenty of gamers are miffed with TR exclusivity, whether or not they are entitled to, or mature to.

Are exclusives good or bad for gamers? What's the future of the exclusive?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Then you possess an anomalous psychology. Typically people form a sense of the future based on past patterns. With two decades of TR games on multiplatforms, the expectation would be that it comes to multiple platforms in it's next version.

I am very surprised at other's surprise, but understand the disappointment.

Anybody who has been following or contributing to the Xbox : What should MS do next? and/or the What HW cost reduction options does XB1 have? threads will have deduced, based on what information we have available, that Microsoft don't have a lot of options for increasing the appeal of Xbox one. Their tech has less whizzbangs than the competition (and issued for some) and there doesn't look to be great scope in cost reducing the package without taking a hit on every console sold. For the most part, people want games to play on their games console and, in my view, Microsoft's first party stable is looking lean compared to their competitors.

I think third party exclusives is one of the few options Microsoft have that is achievable and this is why I'm surprised that others are so surprised. From where I sit, Microsoft buying exclusives was inevitable and I'd be astonished if this is the last third party exclusive Microsoft have bought or are in the process of acquiring.

So when folks say they didn't expect this, I can't argue with that, but what I would say that a lot of people haven't really been paying attention. I'm not disappointed a) because this didn't really surprise me and b) by the time it launches I'll have an Xbox One anyway

Like the little green dude said about fear leading to anger and anger leading to suffering, assumption leads to expectation, expectation leads to disappointment. Everybody who assumed [the game would be multi-platform] is now disappointed. I assumed no such thing - mostly because I really don't think that far ahead for games but I would say that Tomb Raider, which did well in 2013 and has seemingly done well with the Definitive Edition, is the perfect franchise for Microsoft to grab as an exclusive. The brand is doing well and PlayStation owners are likely to know it and crave it all the more.

Whether it'll actually sell Xbox One consoles of course, is another matter.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Exclusives are horrible for the consumer because they limit the consumers' choices when their budget doesn't allow for multiple consoles of the same generation.

It's even worse to turn a previously multi-platform game into a single-platform game because it'll make most people feel they have been abandoned as fans and generate disappointment+anger over the platform who "bought" exclusivity, the publisher and the developer of the game.

Microsoft buying exclusivity of some franchise had been rumored, predicted and borderline officially announce. I just guess everyone was hoping it'd be something they didn't care about.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Exclusives are horrible for the consumer because they limit the consumers' choices when their budget doesn't allow for multiple consoles of the same generation.

As genuine question, do most people really exist in little ecosystem silos of friends and family where they don't know (or have access too) the other consoles? While I've had all PlayStation platforms I've played exclusives on all Nintendo consoles since the GameCube and Microsoft consoles since the original Xbox.

This is not some concerted plan it's just a diversity issue. I've bought PlayStations because I like their first and second party devs and friends and family chose what they wanted. There's never been a 'thing' where we all wanted to play together so strongly as to disregard our personal preferences for the type of games or other compelling features of a platform. Even going back as far as school, I had a Commodore 64 and had friends with 64s and friends with ZX Spectrums, even an Amstrad user - and while we all argued about which was "the best" we all played each others games. I.e., we all "won".

 

[joker454]

Sigh. I remember the good old days, back when all this was just fields, when consoles were powerful at launch ...

In the old days you could pay a programmer $10,000 and get a $100+ million dollar Space Invaders on the other end. Times have certainly changed

Are exclusives good or bad for gamers? What's the future of the exclusive?

This thread is really funny in light of that Tomb Raider announcement as exclusives went from being cool to being irritating in one fell swoop. I think the answer is right there, when exclusives are on peoples platform of choice then they are cool, if not then they suck.

I don't think they are good for developers either because it's only temporary gain. Yeah your costs get fronted by someone else but in the end you own nothing at all. You become nothing but a generic and expendable coding shop, heck your own game that you created and invented can get farmed off to another studio while you get canned and worse yet you may have anti compete clauses to make sure you can't even make any more games remotely resembling what you already created. Yeah you get lots of marketing but it's usually for an ip that you no longer own. Yipee.

So no I don't really think exclusives are good for gamers or for developers. I don't think they are good for the industry at all. Without them the console makers would be more forced to compete on hardware, features, services and price rather then forcing people to buy their box by locking down games to their box. But judging how the exclusives count peaked with the NES and seems to be going down with every subsequent generation means to me they are a dying breed, which is good for everyone. It's basically happening automatically as a way to cope with rising costs anyways.

 

[joker454]

I'm confused, you're talking like Proteus wasn't made available because of a curation policy but it's there. Are there actually any games which have not been released on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One because of Sony and Microsoft curation policies or are we just shaking our first at the curation gods in the sky for the hell of it?

Nothing springs to mind?

It's not an open free for all, so there is a limited number of games that are allowed through on consoles. So besides extra costs there also are limits as to what can make it's way onto those platforms. Steam incidentally is the same with their greenlight process, although it's somewhat less restricted than consoles are. But it's why I can find some games on GoG.com that aren't on Steam for example. That's also why I hate the entire greenlight idea on Steam, it pisses me off to no end although I heard they are getting rid of it eventually. I used Proteus as an example not to show that it was curated away, but to show how a simple game like that can be viewed as both crap or awesome depending on who you are, and as a result why it utterly sucks when other people control whether or not we get to see such games.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It's not an open free for all, so there is a limited number of games that are allowed through on consoles. So besides extra costs there also are limits as to what can make it's way onto those platforms. Steam incidentally is the same with their greenlight process, although it's somewhat less restricted than consoles are.

I didn't know that about Green Light. Has that always been the case or is this something Valve have introduced because of some vetting process? A few rogue games have slipped through their early access programme so curation isn't always a bad thing.

But I have the same question, are devs actually have games rejected by Microsoft and Sony? Because if there is a thin red line that screens out technically poor releases, I'm cool with that. But I'm not aware of any games (indie on PC) that have ben rejected from console release. If it's happening, nobody is talking about it and that seems weird. If it's not happening, what's the problem?

 

[joker454]

I didn't know that about Green Light. Has that always been the case or is this something Valve have introduced because of some vetting process? A few rogue games have slipped through their early access programme so curation isn't always a bad thing.

The idea was a public vetting process, let the gamers decide what games get put on Steam. To me though it totally backfired because ignorance is bliss as they say and when you don't know a game even exists you won't feel like you are missing anything. But when you see a game in greenlight that you really want and then realize that it won't come out until others approve it, well that royally sucks. To that extent it's better the way it is on console because yeah there's a pile of games people there are missing out on but they have no clue about it so they don't fret about it since they don't even know anything about them. You can see that on this forum as well as people get all excited about these new indie games coming out on console that have been on pc for ages, but they had no idea these games existed for years already so it's not a big deal, to them they are brand new games to get excited about.

But I have the same question, are devs actually have games rejected by Microsoft and Sony? Because if there is a thin red line that screens out technically poor releases, I'm cool with that. But I'm not aware of any games (indie on PC) that have ben rejected from console release. If it's happening, nobody is talking about it and that seems weird. If it's not happening, what's the problem?

I don't really know of any but that's because it's not something devs typically talk about unless they are Johnathan Blow. There used to be developer review processes, like your games would be reviewed by peers and they could reject a game. Or they could approve it but you would have to wait for it to get a free slot before it could be release. The way they control it now as I understand is that anyone can sign up, but they don't just give out the dev kit hardware to anyone. There is a queue to receive one with priority given to established indie devs. So just because you sign up doesn't mean you will be getting hardware right away, if at all. Hence for example while the ps4 Indie developer page and it claims "no slotting, no voting", they still indirectly control what gets on their console. No dev kit, no indie game for you. That's why there are so many good indie games available on pc and even tablet that are just plain missing on console. I mean ps4 is just a pc, it's not like development on it is a complicated process and it has more than enough power for the majority of indie games so you would expect all the good ones to be on there now if it was truly a fully unrestricted environment.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

But when you see a game in greenlight that you really want and then realize that it won't come out until others approve it, well that royally sucks.

True, but I don't see this is Valve's responsibility to solve every software distribution problem. I've bought into early alpha/betas (the most recent being 7 Days to Die) direct with the dev, who then transferred my 'ownership' to Steam when their game was released under the Green Light programme.

I don't really know of any but that's because it's not something devs typically talk about unless they are Johnathan Blow. There used to be developer review processes, like your games would be reviewed by peers and they could reject a game.

Gamasutra has some remarkably candid interviews with devs about publishing and distribution so if this were happening I'm certain we'd have heard about it. I recall Eurogamer have also carried articles about indie's woes with Microsoft regarding their transformative self-publishing programme. When Microsoft and Sony start deciding which games can be released on their platform, other than for technical accreditation reasons, I'll worry but until then I'm fine with it.

And I'm sure there are other factors that play into the 'curation' process which is probably also about distributing releases so there is something like a steady stream for users, i.e. a new release each week rather than four today and nothing for a month. Some of this may be due to the work required to make a game available. I genuinely have no idea about this but I suspect it's more work than simply pressing a few buttons.

On Sunday I happened to stumble across Indie Game: The Movie on Netflix which follows a few indie devs experience with launching games but primarily Fez and Super Meat Boy's release on Xbox 360. Phil Fish's experience was bad for nothing to do with Microsoft but the Super Meat Boy had a bit of trouble with the release but nonetheless did very well.

The reason I don't get too worried about whatever curation process Microsoft and Sony have is that they both exist in a competitive market and it's in their interest to release as wide a diverse selection of software as possible. It's simply not in their interest's to be too picky!

 

[Arwin]

Didn't the first game (the isometric one) also have timed exclusivity on the Xbox? Not very long, if I remember correctly, but at least 3 months or something like that?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Didn't the first game (the isometric one) also have timed exclusivity on the Xbox? Not very long, if I remember correctly, but at least 3 months or something like that?

I think so. It was a Summer of Arcade title. Great game, btw, and the sequel that's coming soon is multiplatform. Honestly, I'm more excited about that than this Rise of the Tomb Raider game.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think this could be another golden era of videogames, like the Megadrive vs SNES war, where some companies favoured a console, there were stolen exclusives and each console had a lot of exclusives. I hope so.

Wrong thread but if Microsoft are aiming to buy exclusives to match the output of Sony's first party studios then they'll be burning through cash like crazy.

But I don't see what else they can do to kick start interest now. Boom or bust.

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[Cyan]

Wrong thread but if Microsoft are aiming to buy exclusives to match the output of Sony's first party studios then they'll be burning through cash like crazy.

But I don't see what else they can do to kick start interest now. Boom or bust.

They have plenty of games that could be used as exclusive titles under the Microsoft Studios ip though. In fact, they have more than I initially thought. /I didn't compare to Sony's ips, actually, but I don't see Sony matching the potential amount of exclusive games Microsoft have from the Xbox original era and ahead, plus from the PC days/

Historically, tying some games down to one console usually results in a general increase in sales for that one specific platform, and that's positive for the system.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

They have plenty of games that could be used as exclusive titles under the Microsoft Studios ip though.

Right. But it takes a long while to take an IP and make a polished game from it. That's why they're buying exclusivity now - Titanfall, Tomb Raider. They need a staple output of new games not on PS4 over the next 6-18 months.

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