Console Exclusives: Significance and Impact *spinoff*

[Shifty Geezer]

Slight ruminations...do the presence of exclusives matter more to a certain demographic, particularly younger players with more free time? Does choice of investing in exclusives for a platform, or investing that money elsewhere, result in reaching a different demographic, and by association their peers?

I think it would, and I think exclusives will become more valuable going forwards because of streaming, as the more games you've got, the more chance of one becoming a social-media craze. Then again, maybe a very carefully selected group of games specifically designed for social media coverage would be wiser than something of a crap-shoot, but I'm not sure anyone can really guarantee a game will be socially popular and streamed.

 

[iroboto]

Slight ruminations...do the presence of exclusives matter more to a certain demographic, particularly younger players with more free time? Does choice of investing in exclusives for a platform, or investing that money elsewhere, result in reaching a different demographic, and by association their peers?

I think it would, and I think exclusives will become more valuable going forwards because of streaming, as the more games you've got, the more chance of one becoming a social-media craze. Then again, maybe a very carefully selected group of games specifically designed for social media coverage would be wiser than something of a crap-shoot, but I'm not sure anyone can really guarantee a game will be socially popular and streamed.

I think if we look at the motivations themselves, it's probably a larger driving factor that demographics. Though demographics probably play a key role in generalizing trends. If we were to use games as an example today, people love deep customization, skill trees etc, as a way of personalizing the way they experience the game. Just applying that theory to every day life, I can directly correlate that to having more games to choose and pick from as being a similar desire to personalize their gaming experience.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I've grown up being a social gamer, I don't love doing things on my own as much, most of my driving factors for gaming is seeing my friends online. I have huge guilt when i play SP games and my friends list is lighting up. And so the motivations for me to play are really to hang out with friends and often that could mean playing less selected roles (support/healer/goalie) etc. And so that similarly applies to my purchases for games when viewing a platform.

WRT streamable/viral games, IIRC there has been very little to no data to support how to accomplish that idea. They just don't know the formula of what makes something a viral success or not. And by viral, I mean Minecraft, PUBG, Fortnite, Destiny, Counterstrike, DOTA, LoL etc. I know that they designed SoT to be streamed, it's fallen off the streaming charts significantly. It can definitely come back at a later date though. The game is getting more interesting, not sure if people are streaming how the game has changed since launch. It's been a learning experience like EvE Online, people didn't know how to pirate at the start, but now they're good at it. People are starting to be pirates much more now in SoT. Leaving gun powder barrels in the sea (to act as land mines as you sale in to drop off your loot) by the ports and stuff. Dropping crew mates on islands to do scouting etc. It's definitely changing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The ones who loved 1P games have an opinion which isn't just an interest based on publicity, or reviews, or prexisting bias, it's a fully reflected opinion about their experience. It impacts sales in the long run, not immediately. The next game from that studio will be a sure day one purchase. And when it's been successes for 10 years, it becomes a massive factor. They can talk about the games because they played them.

I agreed with most of what you said except for this. Past success of any studio, even a 1st party one isn't a guarantor of quality in future titles.

Since some people take umbrage with me liking some Sony 1p exclusives and not others. I'll use a MS developer. I thought Fable 1 and 2 were good. For me, Fable 3 wasn't. It wasn't terrible, but it was certainly a disappointment.

One of your comments however, was obviously targeted at me. Having played 90% of a game, but not finishing the last 10% I think qualifies as playing the game. I finished more of GOW3 than I have 90% of the games I own. I don't have the time to finish most of the games I play. I don't even have time to play all the games I own that I want to play.

So, yeah, get off your high horse that people who haven't played from start to finish cannot comment about something.

In most games playing a few hours of the game is enough to let you know what the gameplay is going to be like. From there, if the gameplay is not to my liking but the story is, I'm damn well not going to force my self to suffer through gameplay that I do not like in order to experience that story that I do like. For that I'm thankful that there are people that either stream or record and post their play throughs of games.

For people that are willing to suffer through gameplay they do not enjoy in order to experience the story that they do like? Kudos to them. I have neither the time nor inclination to do that.

Regards,
SB

 

[iroboto]

I agreed with most of what you said except for this. Past success of any studio, even a 1st party one isn't a guarantor of quality in future titles.

Since some people take umbrage with me liking some Sony 1p exclusives and not others. I'll use a MS developer. I thought Fable 1 and 2 were good. For me, Fable 3 wasn't. It wasn't terrible, but it was certainly a disappointment.

One of your comments however, was obviously targeted at me. Having played 90% of a game, but not finishing the last 10% I think qualifies as playing the game. I finished more of GOW3 than I have 90% of the games I own. I don't have the time to finish most of the games I play. I don't even have time to play all the games I own that I want to play.

So, yeah, get off your high horse that people who haven't played from start to finish cannot comment about something.

In most games playing a few hours of the game is enough to let you know what the gameplay is going to be like. From there, if the gameplay is not to my liking but the story is, I'm damn well not going to force my self to suffer through gameplay that I do not like in order to experience that story that I do like. For that I'm thankful that there are people that either stream or record and post their play throughs of games.

For people that are willing to suffer through gameplay they do not enjoy in order to experience the story that they do like? Kudos to them. I have neither the time nor inclination to do that.

Regards,
SB

you've definitely brought in a perspective i've have never considered but it makes perfectly good sense. I've often associated viewing games with eSports, but this works too. I have watched people play games to get an idea if I want to play it, I've also used it to see alternate endings of those sprawling RPGs.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Slight ruminations...do the presence of exclusives matter more to a certain demographic, particularly younger players with more free time? Does choice of investing in exclusives for a platform, or investing that money elsewhere, result in reaching a different demographic, and by association their peers?

I think it would, and I think exclusives will become more valuable going forwards because of streaming, as the more games you've got, the more chance of one becoming a social-media craze. Then again, maybe a very carefully selected group of games specifically designed for social media coverage would be wiser than something of a crap-shoot, but I'm not sure anyone can really guarantee a game will be socially popular and streamed.

I'd be interested if there was a way to get demographic information on it. Myself, I'd lean the other way. Exclusives, IMO, would matter to older generations that are used to exclusives being an extremely important decisions due to how many 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party exclusives there used to be for SEGA, Nintendo, Sony, etc. As former 2nd and 3rd party exclusive developers have moved to being more multiplatform it weakens the impact of exclusives as a key motivator for buying a console.

NOTE - weaken, not remove. It's still important to some extent, but I don't think it was as important as in the PS2 and prior generations due to there being less exclusives on a given platform overall.

I also don't think Streaming will have an impact one way or another. Streamer's as a body of people stream equally even if X or Y streamer mainly streams games from A or B console. It would have 2 different effects.

• Highlight exclusives that a non-platform owner hasn't played and make that platform more interesting to them. I've seen people buy PS4's after watching Persona 5 get streamed, for example. I've seen people buy an XBO after seeing SoT streamed.
• For others it could be counter to that. As after experiencing it through a 3rd party, they may feel they no longer need to buy X platform in order to experience the games on it.

People may question why some might want to experience the story but not the gameplay.

Lets take a slightly divergent but interesting path. Take something like Nier: Automata. It features gameplay that is pretty niche but a story that is pretty compelling. They've basically added a mode in the game that allows you to bypass gameplay (mods that basically do your fighting for you) so that you can just focus on the story. I love it.

There are other games that are starting to incorporate this as well by asking a player at the start if they want to enable "Story Mode" which bypasses much of the gameplay elements in the game.

It's a way to combat people that would prefer to watch a Stream of a game instead of playing the game because they want to see the story but do not want to go through the gameplay loop of the game. It's very smart, IMO, and as I said I love it when developers do that.

I've actually bought some games purely because of this as seeing the story rendered in game is more pleasant than seeing the downgraded visuals on a stream. However, downgraded visuals on a Stream, are also far preferable to suffering through gameplay I do not enjoy.

Regards,
SB

 

[Recop]

I'm going to repost this example, but in only 1 video, Spiderman is close to 30 millions of views :

If this doesn't matter, then it's like saying publicity doesn't matter. Yet companies still pay tons of money to get more visibility in consumers' mind...

 

[chris1515]

I'm going to repost this example, but in only 1 video, Spiderman is close to 30 millions of views :

If this doesn't matter, then it's like saying publicity doesn't matter. Yet companies still pay tons of money to get more visibility in consumers' mind...

I agree partially with you and good sales of first party game prove the point but I am not sure Spiderman is the best example...

But Spiderman is a very popular comics and movie character and withou competitive advantage on Sony, the game will be multiplatform. But no Spiderman exclusive to PS4 no Spiderman in MCU...

https://twitter.com/x/status/983029161534087168

 

[MrFox]

I agreed with most of what you said except for this. Past success of any studio, even a 1st party one isn't a guarantor of quality in future titles.

Please point out where I said it was guaranteed.

 

[DrJay24]

XB1 only has PUBG and SoT to play, there's absolutely no other games on this console

I was talking about console exclusives in the last six months and near future not the whole console generation. Compared to what Sony has lined up that is super weak. My point is if you double down in XB consoiles your ecosystem is shallow, why not own both and more than triple the number of console exclusive to choose from? Seems like an easy conclusion to jump to.

Dolby Atmos, Windows Sonic? Virtual Surround over head phones? You never heard of these critical features that improve the enjoyment of your game play?

Never heard of any of it and don't care. Most people don't. Apparently I even have that stuff? It must be impressive.

Do you know that PS4Pro missing UHD blu ray playback was a big topic of discussion during its release right? You're welcome to read how the HiFi industry reacted to that.

HiFi industry? So not gaming industry? I don't know anyone who buys blu-rays anymore let alone paying more for 4k. I'll stand by my assertion, leaning on media playback features like HDMI in, super duper sound, and HD BD is a stretch - people buy consoles to play games (and stream highly compressed movies).

 

[Recop]

Never heard of any of it and don't care. Most people don't. Apparently I even have that stuff? It must be impressive.

Indeed, the difference is that most people probably never heard of Windows Sonic while Spiderman is probably known by most Xbox owners.

Some advantages simply have a larger impact...

 

[BRiT]

Thats NOT what I said.
Read again.

That's what you are saying, when drawn out to it's logical conclusion.

 

[Nesh]

Indeed, the difference is that most people probably never heard of Windows Sonic while Spiderman is probably known by most Xbox owners.

Some advantages simply have a larger impact...

Indeed.
Someone who buys hardware that support such features, he is usually the type that wants the best content to accommodate the best sound and image quality for a bombastic cinematic experience.
Whats the point of Windows Sonic or Dolby Atmos when playing exclusives like Ori and the Blind Forest when the Audio/Videophile within you wants a cinematic experience with all the special effects and explosions from something like Spiderman?
Apparently Spiderman (or GoW or TLOU) fit that profile better and it is not on XBOX

 

[Nesh]

That's what you are saying, when drawn out to it's logical conclusion.

Thats a wrongful and illogical assumption.
Using your own logic I should assume that you said nobody who have played a game should disagree and provide clarifications if necessary to someone who has not.

 

[Recop]

Whats the point of Windows Sonic or Dolby Atmos when playing exclusives like Ori and the Blind Forest when the Audio/Videophile within you wants a cinematic experience with all the special effects and explosions from something like Spiderman? Apparently Spiderman (or GoW or TLOU) fit that profile better and it is not on XBOX

I understand what you mean, but it's something really subjective, so we can't really argue about that point.

But the things pointed out by iroboto, while undeniable advantages, probably come at the lowest priorities for most of gamers when they buy a console.

 

[BRiT]

Thats a wrongful and illogical assumption.

I know what you mean, I was just taking an extreme tact to it.

My personal view is there are a good number of games that one simply can't properly evaluate the value it provides without playing it first hand. Sea of Thieves is one such title. On the other side, Nyan Cat Adventures (or Life of Black Tiger) is NOT one of them.


WARNING: MAY CAUSE SEIZURES!

 

[chris1515]

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/04/g...of-the-difference-between-sony-and-microsoft/

Article on the subject by Kotaku Australia

 

[iroboto]

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/04/g...of-the-difference-between-sony-and-microsoft/

Article on the subject by Kotaku Australia

My god. I wrote exactly the same points.

So when you see comments decrying the lack of exclusives on the Xbox compared to the PS4, it's really ignoring the reality: the Xbox can't have more exclusives than the PS4. There's just not enough developers.

That's not a huge problem though, because nobody has enough time in the day to play every new game.

Thank you man, these 2 points feels good to be verified here.

Toronto Ubisoft is a new studio 200+ and their first title will likely be of AA scope and not something like assassins creed origins. Talent takes time to build and grow. You can’t just build new studios, that takes years. Your only other option is to buy studios.

Point 2. Not enough time to play them all, thus the argument of the amount of exclusives is at least imo a weak one. If you want to rail Microsoft, it’s not for having less exclusives, having less creativity, but for the overall quality of their output. None of their IPs this gen took off except Horizon 3, and everything else felt like a game that would have done very well years before but aren’t suitable for today’s tastes.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Point 2. Not enough time to play them all, thus the argument of the amount of exclusives is at least imo a weak one.

You're literally saying choice is not something of value because one doesn't experience every option. That's the point about choice - you don't have time to experience every option so select from the options available the ones you most like or want to try. No-one has the time to read all the books in the world, or watch all the movies, or listen to every piece of music. Does that mean the total creative output of the world should be reduced to what one person can manage in a lifetime, and deny them any choice and just offer a limited selection for them to be happy with??

Quite a mind-boggling argument.

 

[iroboto]

You're literally saying choice is not something of value because one doesn't experience every option. That's the point about choice - you don't have time to experience every option so select from the options available the ones you most like or want to try. No-one has the time to read all the books in the world, or watch all the movies, or listen to every piece of music. Does that mean the total creative output of the world should be reduced to what one person can manage in a lifetime, and deny them any choice and just offer a limited selection for them to be happy with??

Quite a mind-boggling argument.

You have choice, if you only have time for 10 games, then you have time for 10 games. There's nothing wrong with that. Whatever drives you to select those 10 games is what drives you. Telling me you have 100 games to choose from doesn't necessarily make for a better argument of choosing the best 10 games. Quantity and Quality aren't directly correlated here, selecting the top 10 games to play is a statement about quality/value.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You have choice, if you only have time for 10 games, then you have time for 10 games. There's nothing wrong with that. Whatever drives you to select those 10 games is what drives you.

Except your argument above is that one doesn't need more games because one hasn't time to play all the games. Less games means less choice. The argument in favour of more exclusives is an argument in favour of more choice when those exclusives are ones that appeal, especially when they have no direct parallels.