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

[Prophecy2k]

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!

Actually my experience was with Batman Arkham Origins. It was defaulting to 1600p for some reason, and after literally hours of googling I figured it was a weird bug with the Steam version and AMD cards (mine's a R9 280x). So no it's not limited to old games. Same thing happened to me again on Cities XL platinum.

But of course, as you rightly put, this isn't the thread for it ;-)

 

[Prophecy2k]

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

Your two examples present somewhat of a false equivalency. No matter how you try to frame it, Heavy Rain was published by Sony. Sony covered the majority of later development stages, marketing, distribution, advertising etc., which as you know (since you're not new to the games industry, nor B3D) can make up a huge proportion of the total cost of bringing a game to market. The fact that QD started developing the game before Sony came on board is to all intents and purposes pretty irrelevant.

Titanfall on the other hand was developed by Respawn and published by EA, not MS. Despite whatever weird tales of MS so-called stepping in to fund development have come out, the fact remains that EA published the game. EA are one of the two larget videogame publishers in the entire industry, and regardless of any deal with MS, could easily have afforded to fully fund Titanfall out of their own pocket. I personally find tales of "MS co-funding" Titanfall a bit dubious, because in the end it merely amounts to how creative EA wants to be with their accounting. At the base of it, MS handed over a wad of cash for exclusivity on the game. EA can come up with whatever excuse they feel like to say what that cash was for, but the reality of course is its just PR. Even if you do believe the stated story, the fact remains that the game (Titanfall) was neither developed nor published by MS, and so isn't really equivalent to Heavy Rain's case; which is full first party published game.

Eitherway, I personally have no problem with deals like Titanfall, since its a new IP and unknown quantity. There's no precedent set and therefore expectation for a multiplatform release. If MS wants to pay the publisher for exclusivity they fair game to them. If Sony wants to contract a dev for them to publish their already in development game exclusively, then fair play to them. Just don't go buying up existing multiplatform franchises as that only takes away from gamers and the industry rather than adding to both.

 

[MrFox]

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

As Prophecy2k said, it's a false equivalence. But still I don't have much of a problem with Titanfall because it's some form of grey area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Rain

During the BAFTA Annual Games Lecture 2013, Cage revealed that game could have been released as Xbox 360 exclusive by Microsoft, but Microsoft turned it down due to its child kidnapping theme, fearing that it may lead to a scandal.[29]

QD was actually looking for a publisher, which in the case of MS or Sony would mean an exclusivity either way. MS turned this down for moronic reasons. They even offered MS the deal first. This looks like the usual partnership of second party where the big guys publish the games developed by the little guys. It looks like Sony is doing a lot of this for indies. It's constructive because the game wouldn't have existed if both MS and Sony had refused. QD didn't have the money to self-publish, so they went for a co-production. It was their move, and the business of it makes sense.

Titanfall is different. It's exclusivity was announced shortly before release, and both the developers and the publishers are multi-platform. It is clear the practical effect of the deal is that it prevents the release on Sony platform. This fits my above description of a destructive move. I think I remember EA implied they didn't believe in the game and it would have been canned without getting MS money. That's EA's prerogative which is why I think it's a grey area. But nothing will change the fact that MS is nowhere near a co-producer.

 

[orangpelupa]

it seems there's a trend for 3rd party games to be released to many platforms due to engine that was designed as multiplatform.

metal gear solid usually are a console timed exclusive. PC will get after 1-2 years late, except MGS 3 and 4. Now they announce it as PC Steam game to. Then they have P.T. Silent Hills that probably going to be multiplatform. Both are using multiplatform-capable engine "foxengine" that already demoed running on PC.

but other games, like FFXV and KH3 also using multiplatform engine "luminous" and they move from PS exclusive to "console exclusive" (x1 and PS4).

@pc is problematic
i think both PC and consoles are problematic (since PS3 / X360 era). For me, the "modern" console that not problematic is only 3DS.

Spoiler

The other console gave problem is save file corruption, hard to access digital content/store, need to clean-up disk space or swapping around USB drive or backup, nagged by patch notice and then i cant play online and the patch need bloody long time to download or keep failing to download (for PS3/PSV it was fixed by running proxy, X360 fixed by copy-paste the update manually from PC).

on the other hand, steam pc games works fine because i use 2 version of them. one from steam, one from "community" (ahem).

Spoiler

So i can play anywhere, anytime, without getting nagged by inconsistent steam offline mode. i can use cheat, memory hack, however i want. For origin game i only need to keep 1 version (the origin version) because it never fail to go to offline.

My point is, i already expect to get some "hardship" with PC. So if something does not work, i will gladly look for workaround. On the other hand, for console games, i expect everything to just works and it really annoying when problem comes. Especially for exclusive games (i remember getting confused whether Gran Turismo is crashed or not and then it finished loading. When i googled it is normal behavior).

 

[Akumajou]

Generally against. I'm a gamer, I love games and I want all other game-loving gamers to be able to play games. Artificially locking a game to a platform which inherently only a minority owns is...not ideal, in my eyes.

It can have the beneficial effect of catering specifically to whatever gimmickry is unique to the platform in question, but overall this does not outweigh the downsides. IMO, YMMV etc, as always.

That's some really negative shit logic right there.

I should mention that ever since consoles went into 3d engine polygon graphics there are glorious tales of fond memories of games on PlayStation 1, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64.

During the PlayStation 2 generation there were many games that stood out there despite the huge number of competing games and let's not forget that it was a single platform exclusive that pretty much helped establish the Xbox 1. (Not xbone obviously)

Take exclusives away and remove the game programmers abilities to out geek each other (the best game devs are known for mastering each console platform within the hardware and software limitations over time.

Take all that away and all you are left is with generic clones...eventually the argument will lead to using a single 3d engine instead of multiple solutions because of ignorance and apathy.

Last generation was dominated by the simple CoD games in terms of sales and hype mind share which helped ignore other games that pushed the tech with lighting and physics and complex artificial intelligence.

Sorry but gaming is an artistic medium comparable in a way to cars...petrol be damned but the argument is saying that every car made should be a Smart Car because at the end of the day it's just a car...I know..bad analogy but videogame experience only really records those unique gaming experiences that brave gamers who weren't under the "marketing hype spell of paid reviews" experienced.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The middleware engines are becoming more and more flexible and feature complete. It just makes sense to not reinvent the wheel. People looking back on PS1, PS2 era games are forgetting how much cheaper it was to make them, how much smaller the development teams were, how much simpler games were and how little content gamers expected for their $60. Nothing about using a middleware engine prevents you from writing custom shaders and totally changing the look and feel of your game. It just makes sure you have a stable (incredibly important) foundation for you and powerful user-refined tools. And really, if you're working with Unreal Engine 4, it's pretty easy to make your game for all platforms.

I think there are a lot of rose-coloured glasses when looking back on prior generations and coming to conclusions as to why exclusives were so successful. The idea that developers who use Unreal Engine 4, Unity, Cryengine are lesser devs, or less creative devs, is complete nonsense. Also, going back to PS1 and PS2 era, including the other platforms, 99% of the games were toilet bowls full of turds. On average, games are much better than ever. The amount of good games that are out there to play, from AAA to indie is pretty much overwhelming.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sorry but gaming is an artistic medium comparable in a way to cars...

If you want to think of games as an artistic medium, you should think of them as fine arts. Who cares what brand or technology of paint is used by an artist when it's the arrangement of the paint on canvas or paper or whatever that makes for the artwork? Games are all about the content and experience, and not the technology powering it other than to help with its identity. And we have that beautifully underlined this gen. Every one of the big three platforms uses exactly the same tech, and exactly the same techniques are available. Why does The Tomorrow Children look so awesome? Is it because of a unique hardware feature of PS4 that enables voxelised lighting? Nope, it's a technique that any of the platforms could use and the game could probably be ported to PC in an instant.

The similarities of the hardware and level playing-field of the middleware means devs no longer have to chase exclusive tech solutions. They can concentrate on their vision and its execution. They no longer have to paint in shades of blue because Sony's pigment technology can't handle red very well, nor stick to nature scenes on Xbox because it's so strong in green but not great in other colours. They have the full spectrum on all platforms, the hardware has pretty much unified, and the devs are freer than ever to express themselves (other than financial costs!). I can understand some being disappointed in the loss of 'romance' from the console scene, as identities fade away and we end up with generic boxes, but in real terms, games have more room to diverse themselves thanks to a lack of esoteric hardwares because the economies are so much improved.

 

[dobwal]

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.

I'd bet you don't miss blowing into carts or turning your console on its side or upside down to get its OD drive to play nice.

Consoles have basically always had some type of quirk whether its software or hardware based.

 

[Nesh]

I'd bet you don't miss blowing into carts or turning your console on its side or upside down to get its OD drive to play nice.

Consoles have basically always had some type of quirk whether its software or hardware based.

Too many quirks now compared to then.

Blowing a cartridge never infuriated me as much as broken consoles, corrupted saves, dysfunctional hard drives, bugs and crashes all experienced in a single console.

They fuck up the experience all the time. Now we worry about a hardware fatal dysfunction that may or may not occur that will cause even more distress trying to get it fixed or replaced

Back in the day a console was as stable as it could get. If something got broken it was easily fixable.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Too many quirks now compared to then.

Blowing a cartridge never infuriated me as much as broken consoles, corrupted saves, dysfunctional hard drives, bugs and crashes all experienced in a single console.

They fuck up the experience all the time. Now we worry about a hardware fatal dysfunction that may or may not occur that will cause even more distress trying to get it fixed or replaced

Back in the day a console was as stable as it could get. If something got broken it was easily fixable.

Go back to giant transistors and simplistic hardware if you want. Memory and HDD issues are not related to consoles. They're inherent flaws of hardware shared across any device that uses them, including PC. Software bugs are related to software complexity, which grows every year despite huge advances in tools, operating systems, middleware and APIs. If you want less bugs, go back to playing your old games. If you compare now to back then, it's not a level playing field.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Go back to giant transistors and simplistic hardware if you want. Memory and HDD issues are not related to consoles. They're inherent flaws of hardware shared across any device that uses them, including PC.

That's true. hardware failures and dead HDDs are a part of PC as well as consoles - they're all the same tech after all!

Software bugs are related to software complexity, which grows every year despite huge advances in tools, operating systems, middleware and APIs.

Also true, and they happen in the PC space as well. I've been playing Neverwinter Online with friends and it crashes someone out every now and then. That's the game. Also had OS shutdowns on PC. They're very rare (not like the horrific BSOD years which established Window's unshakeable image for some) but they still happen. Bugs exist on all platforms, hence the many frequent patches and updates all software gets. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either extremely lucky or viewing things selectively.

My personal experience has seen PS3 be probably a smidge more bug prone than my Win 7 PCs of the same period. Game wise, any game, first or third party, can have issues (which is why they get patched!).

 

[Scott_Arm]

It's actually a good detour back into exclusives. I don't want to be an apologist for bugs, but it's pretty amazing that games are still relatively bug free considering how massively code bases have grown, and how complexity has increased. If you want more bugs, roll your own game engine and tools. Middleware is a great thing. That said, one of the advantages of being an exclusive in the old days of exotic hardware was probably that you could limit complexity. If you made a multiplatform game, you had to deal with two code bases. What's the easiest way to handle that? Reduce complexity, which means less features. An exclusive only has to worry about one code base, so they don't have the same concern. Nowadays, with great middleware you can not have to worry so much about the underlying complexity and just worry about your game. So last gen you saw multiplatform games closing the gap with exclusives, if not bettering them at times. This gen you have pretty much the same hardware across the board, and incredibly powerful middleware. There is no reason Unreal Engine 4, or other licensed engines, cannot push hardware just as much as an exclusive engine. If anything it has a huge edge because people can contribute code back into the source. Lionhead pushed code into UE4 and now anyone that uses UE4 will be able to use it. The advantages to making an exclusive game are disappearing. The only reason to do it is financial support from the platform, which could be a very good decision at times. In terms of tech and stability, I'd say the advantages are almost gone.

 

[Rodéric]

For a gamedev it's best to target both systems as you have more potential clients, for a very small extra cost (dealing with the One embedded RAM).

For Sony & MS however they are important to establish dominance...

 

[Nesh]

Go back to giant transistors and simplistic hardware if you want. Memory and HDD issues are not related to consoles. They're inherent flaws of hardware shared across any device that uses them, including PC. Software bugs are related to software complexity, which grows every year despite huge advances in tools, operating systems, middleware and APIs. If you want less bugs, go back to playing your old games. If you compare now to back then, it's not a level playing field.

You simply explained the reasons. Explaining the reasons dont remove the quirks and annoyances. Also burned and malfunctioning hardware isnt isolated to HDD. In addition some bugs and crashes are expected. But if they become frequent there is a problem that requires better design or fixing.

 

[dobwal]

You simply explained the reasons. Explaining the reasons dont remove the quirks and annoyances. Also burned and malfunctioning hardware isnt isolated to HDD. In addition some bugs and crashes are expected. But if they become frequent there is a problem that requires better design or fixing.

But haven't they gotten better. I have had just one crash to the Home UI, one crash which allowed me to restart a match from the pause menu of the game (UFC), and one crash requiring a total shutdown of the Xbox1 in the 10 months I have had the console, which is a launch unit.

My two 360s (2006, 2008) and PS3s (2007, 2009) seem to experience crashes that required shutdowns far more frequently. And it happen enough that it shape my behavior where I made a concerted effort to manually save games in titles where auto save points weren't frequent.

 

[Scott_Arm]

You simply explained the reasons. Explaining the reasons dont remove the quirks and annoyances. Also burned and malfunctioning hardware isnt isolated to HDD. In addition some bugs and crashes are expected. But if they become frequent there is a problem that requires better design or fixing.

I'm not apologizing for bugs. I'm not saying they aren't annoying. They definitely are. Crashing out of a game and losing progress, or crashing out of a multiplayer game can be immensely frustrating. I just think people need to understand why it happens, and adjust their expectations. There's a line that can be crossed where it's obvious something must not have been tested properly. For the most part, I think there are bugs and it will be impossible to launch software that is entirely bug free. You just hope that support is good enough to patch them quickly.

 

[Nesh]

I'm not apologizing for bugs. I'm not saying they aren't annoying. They definitely are. Crashing out of a game and losing progress, or crashing out of a multiplayer game can be immensely frustrating. I just think people need to understand why it happens, and adjust their expectations. There's a line that can be crossed where it's obvious something must not have been tested properly. For the most part, I think there are bugs and it will be impossible to launch software that is entirely bug free. You just hope that support is good enough to patch them quickly.

The issue isnt about few normal occurances. The issue is a frequent appearance of different problems. Many of which are a result of bad design. For example both consoles had significant hardware failure rates which are difficult, costly to fix and sometimes outright impossible. I had a few and were a pain in the ass. The first time I experienced so many in a single generation.
This is a result of bad hardware design and cheap components.
Dead HDDs, BR drives, fans that get overloaded during the first minutes of play, YLOD.....I experienced some of these issues on two separate models.
We ve got many crashes, especially on the PS3 because its trying to do more than what its capable of or because the main software isnt optimized. This includes crashes and huge slowdowns while trying to access the XMB during a game. Its a highlighted feature that doesnt work as it was supposed to.
We ve got very slow load ups of simple apps such as the PS Store.


Thankfully I havent had such issues with my PS4 yet but time will tell.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is a result of bad hardware design and cheap components.

A considerable portion of the blame lay in legally enforced lead-free solder which manufacturers and designed hadn't enough experience with. Later models learnt from the experience of using that lead-free solder and produced reliable machines (helped with die shrinks). I think it unfair to place all the blame on bad hardware design and cheapness (hell, PS3 was far from cheap!).

 

[function]

You can get 3rd party RRoD repairs done on original model 360's where they use lead solder.

Anecdotally, leaded-up 360's - at least the Falcons I've heard about - seem to be pretty much bombproof* and last years - and outlast lead-free Jaspers.

(*Apart from the DVD drives).

 

[orangpelupa]

@function
my Falcon X360 dead a few days after 1 year

and the death is very weird. it dead after i left it off for vacation for a while (i think it was a week). Then when i turned it on, it RRoD. Normally my x360 almost never turned off because the games i played have bad save points or overly long boss battle (looking at you Lost Odyssey).

on the other hand, my Jasper still living strong until today. But i already replace the fan with my Falcon. its much quieter.

btw the dvd drive on my Falcon (BenQ) and the Power Supply also quieter than my Jasper (LiteOn).

@Nesh
the XMB menu slow-down also happen on my PS4. Its not as bad as PS3, but it is much more bad than X360.
it never slow down in TLOUR but always slow-down in Destiny. The menu usually love to freeze for around 10 seconds.

X360 never do checkdisk, never complain when it got dirty shutdown, and the menu works fast (except the quick launch menu).