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

[Prophecy2k]

I think Sony did a bang up job at Gamescom this year, demonstrating the originality and uniqueness that can come out of first party developed exclusive games.

Rime, The Tomorrow Children, Wild, Bloodborne and Until Dawn all looked phenomenal. And I think it's games like these that personally justify my choice of picking a PS4 over an XB1; not to mention all the other big name stuff like DriveClub, Uncharted 4 and The Order 1886.

I think these games are additive to the PS4 as a platform and to the industry as a whole. Since if Sony didn't make them we'd simply have less games to play on our shiny new boxes.

I think its a testament to the ability of first parties to take creative risks and recognise the potential fanbases for these kinds of projects, instead of just churning out annual iterations of whatever is presently popular, that makes internally developed exclusives like these worthwhile.

I don't see how anyone can look at this selection of upcoming titles and say that all exclusives are dull and uninteresting compared to multiplatform titles.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Which of those are certain PS4 exclusives? I recall something like 4 titles were exclusive and the rest were 'coming first on PS4'.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Which of those are certain PS4 exclusives? I recall something like 4 titles were exclusive and the rest were 'coming first on PS4'.

All the games I mentioned are published by Sony or published and developed by them.

They're exclusive forever

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I can't imagine what it would have cost to buy Tomb Raider outright. I don't think it would even be worth it really.

Depends on the game. Can you imagine if they paid Rockstar $500m for exclusivity for GTA VI?

 

[eastmen]

Depends on the game. Can you imagine if they paid Rockstar $500m for exclusivity for GTA VI?

I would say elder scrolls or fallout would also be worth it. If they could get madden/ fifa it could be worth it also

 

[joker454]

Depends on the game. Can you imagine if they paid Rockstar $500m for exclusivity for GTA VI?

Yeah for sure, definitely depends on the game. But typically if it's that clear that a game is worth buying outright then the cost to buy it will probably be somewhat more than a given release of said game can pull in. So in GTA's case I presume it would take far more than $500m to buy it outright. Most games though tend to get kinda tired by the 3rd or 4th revision. Tomb Raider was rebooted and that dramatically helped (last game was awesome!) but still how many more high dollar return releases are left in that franchise? Tough to say...hence timed is a decent option for it. I would be curious to see the terms of the deal though. Like is it less about an outright payment and more about marketing dollars, product placement, preferential placement, maybe they help them with a future new franchise to help that ip hit the ground running, etc...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Yeah for sure, definitely depends on the game. But typically if it's that clear that a game is worth buying outright then the cost to buy it will probably be somewhat more than a given release of said game can pull in.

Undoubtably. But I think what Microsoft need more than anything right now is for people to have reason to splash out on the console instead of, or as well as, a PlayStation 4 or Wii U. Once they've got them as an owner those same people are likely to buy those platform exclusive games that appeal but wouldn't have been enough to splash out on the console to buy.

They need a genuine system seller. Take a loss on, then sell to the increased customer base who otherwise wouldn't even have your console

 

[onQ]

I would say elder scrolls or fallout would also be worth it. If they could get madden/ fifa it could be worth it also

The last time EA didn't make games for a console it gave life to the sports franchise that ultimately killed of NBA Live & was on their way hurting Madden (The 2K Sports franchise).


If EA was to start making Madden/FIFA for the Xbox One it would force Sony to make their own sports games. Being that the PS4 is the more powerful system & most likely will have the bigger install base that would be a dangerous move for EA.

EA wouldn't want Madden to end up like NBA Live , MVP Baseball or even like MLB 2K.

In fact I would love to see EA try this right now & get Madden wiped out by some Ex NFL 2K /Madden team members hired by Sony.

 

[onQ]

I don't understand why this has to be repeated? It's not a difficult concept. No-one is complaining about games that are revealed as new and platform exclusive. It didn't happen with Ryse, Gears, LBP, Sunset Overdrive, yada yada. The complaint comes from people expecting a multiplatform game to remain multiplatform and finding that's no longer the case. It may very well be how Sony behaved 20 years ago, but most gamers looking at the market now are basing it on their experiences and not ancient history. Major games in development as multiplatform getting turned into platform exclusives is a rare thing. Ordinarily it's a timed exclusive which everyone is far more comfortable with. And that's also exactly what we have here! If MS had revealed the deal as, "play first on Xbox in 2015," and then explained to the media as soon as asked that it was a timed exclusive, the outrage would have been very little because everyone understands that sort of business. That's normal and in the range of experience.

I also don't understand your extreme double standard, how Sony securing some exclusive Destiny DLC is wrong but MS securing an entire game is okay. Tell a lie, I do understand it. It's the same partisan view so many have. Everyone hates when life is unfair except when it's unfair in their favour. A game or content being exclusive on the platform one owns is okay business practice, but on the alternative machine it's despicable and underhanded.

In conclusion to the thread, I dare say exclusives are more trouble than they're worth. Generate more bad moods and hostility and console warring than make for healthy, happy platforms and gamers. But then I've also argued that discrete machines is a redundant concept anyway and we could even be better off with just one platform, but that makes me even crazier and planning the downfall of gaming than everyone else! Better to have several machines and people fighting over differences than one community of unified gamers where everyone has every game...

I have never felt that way until Xbox One removed Kinect as a standard part of the Xbox One.

Reason: without Kinect as standard Xbox One is pretty much just a weaker PS4 with less gaming features that seem like a redundant console that's doing more harm than good for gaming right now by limiting what devs will do on the PS4.

Never have I felt like that but the Xbox One make me look at it & ask "why are you here? what will you bring to the table?" but I'm still hoping that they pull something off with Cloud Computing.

 

[Nisaaru]

Awesome idea, wish I'd have thought of that earlier. I'll just go out and buy a £350 console that I don't want and have no space for + a £50 game that will look and play worse than the one I wanted to get for £20 on my current platform. What on Earth was I worrying about!

Well, that's how most XBox users felt about buying a PS2/PS3/Nintendo console to enjoy other's exclusives. The whole console business is about playing the gatekeeper to some exclusive goods. Like the drug dealer under the bridge or the pimp. So it's a bit funny to play the moral card here

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Damn, it would have been quicker to select the posts that weren't about Tomb Raider! Thread cleaned. TR is in new home. This thread is to talk about the pros and cons of exclusive titles, and notable a subjective preference as per the OP.

 

[MrFox]

Starting over...

I'm against timed exclusives, I'm against third party exclusives that aren't actual co-production, and I'm against those where the business incentive of the deal is primarily to prevent competitors from having it, where an existing franchise fanbase is the primary value of the deal. It's partly a business ethics argumentation, which is forbidden here, so I won't. (but hey, we're allowed to call each other a bunch of butthurt crybabies, for some reason)

However, I really love first/second party exclusives and I respect third party exclusives that are co-productions.

The big difference is that one method is to add more games available to gamers, the other method is to remove offering to competitors. One is good for the industry and the other destroys it. Etc... This distinction is the center of disagreements.

I have lots of games that I still play for Amiga, PC, GameCube, Wii, WiiU, PS2, PS3, PS4. Roughly 80% of my console games are first or second party exclusives (it's practically 100% for Wii/WiiU). My PC rig is for games that aren't available on consoles, or games that are much better with KB/M, most importantly MMOs. Amiga emulator is for nostalgia and doesn't really count.

I think it's just that the type of games that I like are rarely the latest popular genre, and third parties need strong sales everywhere so they always go toward the popular genre.

The good reason for first/second party exclusives is that the console manufacturers can fill up the genres offering, spread it to stabilize the influx of games in a regular way. They can add games of a specific genre which is naturally ignored by third parties, even if it's not directly profitable, or more risky. The reason for them to make a game that's already popular genre is if they can do better than anybody else and provide differentiation (TLoU and Super Smash comes to mind).

I don't know if that's why Sony is winning this generation, but it works for me because they make the games I like. My PC is now mostly for MMOs, Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games, and most everything else is on PS3/4. This situation wouldn't have happened without the number of Sony's first party offerings, or Nintendo's unique ability to make games which have no equal anywhere.

 

[temesgen]

Starting over...

I'm against timed exclusives, I'm against third party exclusives that aren't actual co-production, and I'm against those where the business incentive of the deal is primarily to prevent competitors from having it, where an existing franchise fanbase is the primary value of the deal. It's partly a business ethics argumentation, which is forbidden here, so I won't. (but hey, we're allowed to call each other a bunch of butthurt crybabies, for some reason)

However, I really love first/second party exclusives and I respect third party exclusives that are co-productions.

The big difference is that one method is to add more games available to gamers, the other method is to remove offering to competitors. One is good for the industry and the other destroys it. Etc... This distinction is the center of disagreements.

I have lots of games that I still play for Amiga, PC, GameCube, Wii, WiiU, PS2, PS3, PS4. Roughly 80% of my console games are first or second party exclusives (it's practically 100% for Wii/WiiU). My PC rig is for games that aren't available on consoles, or games that are much better with KB/M, most importantly MMOs. Amiga emulator is for nostalgia and doesn't really count.

I think it's just that the type of games that I like are rarely the latest popular genre, and third parties need strong sales everywhere so they always go toward the popular genre.

The good reason for first/second party exclusives is that the console manufacturers can fill up the genres offering, spread it to stabilize the influx of games in a regular way. They can add games of a specific genre which is naturally ignored by third parties, even if it's not directly profitable, or more risky. The reason for them to make a game that's already popular genre is if they can do better than anybody else and provide differentiation (TLoU and Super Smash comes to mind).

I don't know if that's why Sony is winning this generation, but it works for me because they make the games I like. My PC is now mostly for MMOs, Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games, and most everything else is on PS3/4. This situation wouldn't have happened without the number of Sony's first party offerings, or Nintendo's unique ability to make games which have no equal anywhere.

This sums it up fairly well and I agree with most of what you said.

@shifty - thanks for picking up after us kids, it is appreciated.

 

[DavidGraham]

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.

BUT it can play the majority of current generation titles, it seems many first party XO titles are coming to PCs. Ryse, Titanfall, Dead Rising 3, Ori and the Blind Forest, Ghost of a Tale (even Halo and Fable are strongly rumored to get a PC port, Quantum Break is a strong candidate as well). PS4 fares a little worse but it has it's fair share as well: No Man Sky, DayLight, The Vanishing of Ethan. The situation in third party titles is even worse, almost all of the titles are coming to PCs or in the planning stages of getting a PC port, MGS, Division, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, GTA and even Destiny is seriously considering it.

All of that while PC enjoys it's huge share of exclusives as well, add to that a major share of XO titles and some share of PS4 titles and you get a platform that is unmatched in the field of games accessibility.

 

[Prophecy2k]

BUT it can play the majority of current generation titles, it seems many first party XO titles are coming to PCs. Ryse, Titanfall, Dead Rising 3, Ori and the Blind Forest, Ghost of a Tale (even Halo and Fable are strongly rumored to get a PC port, Quantum Break is a strong candidate as well). PS4 fares a little worse but it has it's fair share as well: No Man Sky, DayLight, The Vanishing of Ethan. The situation in third party titles is even worse, almost all of the titles are coming to PCs or in the planning stages of getting a PC port, MGS, Division, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, GTA and even Destiny is seriously considering it.

All of that while PC enjoys it's huge share of exclusives as well, add to that a major share of XO titles and some share of PS4 titles and you get a platform that is unmatched in the field of games accessibility.

All of which I'm not arguing against. Rather PC, with its wide ranging library of games still isn't all encompasing, and so the best solution for gaining accessability to the prevailing majority of games is to combine PC with a console with the exclusives you like. Best of both worlds, and when you get sick of the constant crashing, needing to update GPU drivers, needing to tweak config files to make a game render at your display resolution and all that other crap that comes along with PC gaming, you can move to your console for a bit until all those woes are no longer fresh in your mind (that's what I'm doing presently)

 

[pjbliverpool]

and when you get sick of the constant crashing, needing to update GPU drivers, needing to tweak config files to make a game render at your display resolution and all that other crap that comes along with PC gaming, you can move to your console for a bit until all those woes are no longer fresh in your mind (that's what I'm doing presently)

Not that this is the thread for it but just wanted to point out that any game which doesn't support a standard resolution of 1080p on the PC is undoubtedly so old as to not be available on the current generation of consoles and likely not the last either.

So given a choice between tweaking a config file to play at my monitors native resolution or not playing the game at all, there is no choice.

It also never fails to amuse me how people state "having to update GPU drivers" as if it's some kind of serious chore. Once a month or so GeForce Experience pops up in my system tray and says "there is a new driver available, do you want to install it?" I click yes, screen flickers for a few seconds and then its done. Oh the humanity!

 

[joker454]

Best of both worlds, and when you get sick of the constant crashing, needing to update GPU drivers, needing to tweak config files to make a game render at your display resolution and all that other crap that comes along with PC gaming, you can move to your console for a bit until all those woes are no longer fresh in your mind (that's what I'm doing presently)

Yeah when I had the 360 and PS3 the lock ups, crashes, save game corruptions and all that were really irritating, I hate how unstable consoles have become compared to how rock solid they used to be back in the day. Meanwhile my pc hasn't crashed on a game since 2012 and games on it run like a breeze which is such a nice stable change compared to game consoles where people just tolerate bugs, game issues and their general incompleteness.

 

[-tkf-]

Yeah when I had the 360 and PS3 the lock ups, crashes, save game corruptions and all that were really irritating, I hate how unstable consoles have become compared to how rock solid they used to be back in the day. Meanwhile my pc hasn't crashed on a game since 2012 and games on it run like a breeze which is such a nice stable change compared to game consoles where people just tolerate bugs, game issues and their general incompleteness.

Yeah I haven't had one corrupted save on my 360 or PS3. But let's talk pc shall we, awesome uplay managed to fuck up my farcry 3 saves, nothing an hour or two with Google couldn't save of course.
Yes, it's useless facts if course.
Anecdotes should be kept out of this unless it's backed up by hard evidence.

 

[joker454]

Yeah I haven't had one corrupted save on my 360 or PS3. But let's talk pc shall we, awesome uplay managed to fuck up my farcry 3 saves, nothing an hour or two with Google couldn't save of course.
Yes, it's useless facts if course.
Anecdotes should be kept out of this unless it's backed up by hard evidence.

Exactly, anecdotes are useless because they don't necessarily represent what's really going on. Hence why I countered one useless anecdote with another in hopes that people can learn to drop old stereotypes. So just because you had issues with Far Cry 3 doesn't mean anything since I completed Far Cry 3 with not one issue, fault or crash. Once again showing how useless anecdotes can be.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Starting over...

I'm against timed exclusives, I'm against third party exclusives that aren't actual co-production, and I'm against those where the business incentive of the deal is primarily to prevent competitors from having it, where an existing franchise fanbase is the primary value of the deal. It's partly a business ethics argumentation, which is forbidden here, so I won't. (but hey, we're allowed to call each other a bunch of butthurt crybabies, for some reason)

However, I really love first/second party exclusives and I respect third party exclusives that are co-productions.

The big difference is that one method is to add more games available to gamers, the other method is to remove offering to competitors. One is good for the industry and the other destroys it. Etc... This distinction is the center of disagreements.

I have lots of games that I still play for Amiga, PC, GameCube, Wii, WiiU, PS2, PS3, PS4. Roughly 80% of my console games are first or second party exclusives (it's practically 100% for Wii/WiiU). My PC rig is for games that aren't available on consoles, or games that are much better with KB/M, most importantly MMOs. Amiga emulator is for nostalgia and doesn't really count.

I think it's just that the type of games that I like are rarely the latest popular genre, and third parties need strong sales everywhere so they always go toward the popular genre.

The good reason for first/second party exclusives is that the console manufacturers can fill up the genres offering, spread it to stabilize the influx of games in a regular way. They can add games of a specific genre which is naturally ignored by third parties, even if it's not directly profitable, or more risky. The reason for them to make a game that's already popular genre is if they can do better than anybody else and provide differentiation (TLoU and Super Smash comes to mind).

I don't know if that's why Sony is winning this generation, but it works for me because they make the games I like. My PC is now mostly for MMOs, Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games, and most everything else is on PS3/4. This situation wouldn't have happened without the number of Sony's first party offerings, or Nintendo's unique ability to make games which have no equal anywhere.

What about the situation where the console maker had no hand in starting developement of a game (hence can't be considered co-production) but the game would never be released if not for money injected by that console maker?

Some examples. Heavy Rain by Quantic Dream originally started development as multiplatform but became platform exclusive. Titan Fall by Respawn originally started developement as multiplaform but became console exclusive but not platform exclusive.

Regards,
SB